Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 9.djvu/636

610 the request of his friend Governor Andrew, in 1861, he accepted the office of Inspector of Gas and Gas-Meters for the State of Massachusetts, and organized a system of inspection in which he aimed to apply scientific principles more fully than had hitherto been attempted in the United States. Some account of his methods was given at a meeting of the British Association. During this time Prof. Rogers was often called upon for public lectures on scientific subjects in Massachusetts and elsewhere, and gave several courses before the Lowell Institute in Boston.

Prof. Rogers had long felt the need, in our educational system, of giving to the physical sciences a higher place and more practical methods of teaching than had hitherto been allowed them, and he was therefore eager to avail himself of the opportunity for carrying out these views. In behalf of a committee of gentlemen who had become interested in the subject, he drew up a scheme entitled "Object and Plan of an Institute of Technology," embracing a society of arts, a museum of arts, and a school of industrial science; and he subsequently addressed a memorial to the Legislature of Massachusetts, urging the establishment of such an institution. After some delay a charter for the "Institute of Technology" was granted, and Prof. Rogers was placed at its head. A whole square of land on Back Bay was granted for building-purposes—one third to the Boston Society of Natural History, the other two thirds to the Institute of Technology. But the popularity and increasing prosperity of the Institute make it already cramped in its present stately hall, and it will soon be necessary to have another edifice. The detailed plan for the departments of the school, prepared by Prof. Rogers in 1864, has been carried out, with but slight modifications. A marked feature of this plan, which has since been adopted in many other institutions, was the introduction of laboratory teaching, not only in the department of chemistry, but in that of physics, mechanics, and mining, a feature which has no doubt contributed largely to the reputation which the school has acquired for thoroughness of scientific training.

Besides being president of the Institute, Prof. Rogers filled the chair of Physics and Geology for several years after the establishment of the school. It may be added that he was active in founding the American Social Science Association, and was its first president.

But this inventory of the life-work of Prof. Rogers, extensive and interesting as it is, leaves out a powerful element of the influence he has exerted as a teacher over great numbers of young men who have been brought within the spell of his personality. Prof. Rogers is an orator of the first class, and we have loner regarded him as the most impressive and delightful speaker that has appeared before the American Association. And it must be remembered that science puts oratory to its highest test; it is a field in which reason is supreme, and where the speaker is not at liberty to throw logic to