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LEWIS INSTITUTE |
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By Agness Joslyn Kaufman |
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| Another paragraph in the will
provided for the "establishment and maintenance of a Polytechnic
School, second to none, though, in no way, was this school to interfere
with the school for females." With the instructions of the will at hand, and the building started, the trustees set about to determine the nature, scope, and management of the Institute about to open its doors. Our files contain very interesting and remarkable letters from educators, prominent Chicagoans, and again from John Q. Public as to what should be taught in the new school. Fortunately the trustees had the intelligence to turn for help to the newcomer in out city whose modern ideas in education were startling the Middle West - William Rainey Harper. Dr. Harper, who had been somewhat handicapped in the experiments he would like to have tried at the University of Chicago, eagerly seized the opportunity to develop some of his new ideas under more favorable circumstances. From the younger men working with him at the time, he recommended George Noble Carman, then Principal of Morgan Park Academy and a member of the English department of the University of Chicago, to head the new institution. These two men agreed perfectly as to the plan of study to be carried on, the trustees acquiesced, and Lewis Institute was incorporated to offer a four-year high school course in technical subjects and liberal arts, and an additional two years of college work in arts and engineering. While the actual term "junior college" is not used in this specific grant, Lewis really became the first junior college to be established in the United States. In that first year, 1896-97, a day, evening, and a summer session were conducted, and if newspaper publicity is an indication of educational value to public, Lewis certainly filled a long felt need. One of the first of the experimental schools was on its way, and no one was even hired on the faculty who was not willing to "go along" with new ideas in education. |
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| Page last updated on May 17, 2000. |
