From Lectern to Laboratory

How Science and Technology Changed the Face of America's Colleges

W. Nikola-Lisa

• Publisher: Gyroscope Books
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9780578460710
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: History of Education

In this well-documented account, W. Nikola-Lisa explores how science and technology changed the face of America’s colleges and universities during the nineteenth century, bringing much needed reform to the classical liberal arts curriculum. The author’s detailed narrative explores the origins of the classical liberal arts curriculum, the rise of “mutual education societies, ” the push to establish independent polytechnic institutes, and the creation of “schools of science” at established colleges and universities. Additionally, as the title suggests, the author explores the pedagogical changes brought about by these initiatives, especially in the area of science and technology where hands-on experiential laboratory instruction slowly became the norm rather than the exception.

CHAPTER 1 | Land of Living Waters

The news that the new capitol building would be constructed on the crest of Beacon Hill immediately produced other changes in the rustic surroundings of nearby Park Street and Tremont Street where hay carts rumbled and cattle still grazed. Within a dozen years the whole area was in the midst of rapid development, transforming the old Puritan town of wood and thatch into a new Federalist capital of brick and granite.1 —Thomas H. O’Connor

We know very little about the early life of Edward Pickering. No definitive biography exists. What has been written usually begins after Pickering accepted the directorship of the Harvard Observatory, which he did in November of 1876, beginning his official duties at the observatory on the first of February 1877. His work at the observatory, which at the time was one of the most important centers for astronomical research in the world, is well documented both by internal annual reports and external analyses.

What we don’t know is how Pickering spent his childhood, other than casual references to his life as the child of an established Boston family, his family’s Beacon Hill residence, and Pickering’s graduation from the prestigious Boston Latin School at the age of sixteen. In his biographical memoir written for the National Academy of Sciences in 1932, Solon Bailey, an early employee and close associate of Edward Pickering, wrote:

Mr. Pickering was fortunate in his heritage. Of a family always prominent in New England history, he was heir neither to riches nor to poverty, but to splendid opportunity, which he eagerly grasped. From early youth to old age, his zeal in the pursuit of scientific problems was unbounded. His education was begun in private schools, but later carried forward at the Boston Latin School. He had small love of the classics and gave them scant attention. In the Lawrence Scientific School, however, he entered upon his work with that enthusiasm which marked all the activities of his mature life. He was graduated from this school summa cum laude at the age of nineteen, and was immediately appointed Instructor of Mathematics in that institution. A year later he became Assistant in Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and in the following year Thayer Professor of Physics, a position which he held until he became Director of the Observatory.2

This is a typical biographical sketch, which skips over Pickering’s childhood, mentioning only briefly his graduation from Boston Latin, and focuses on his years at Lawrence Scientific School, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Harvard Observatory, with the latter receiving the closest attention. In order to understand Edward Pickering’s life in Boston as a youth, we’ll need to piece together his childhood from the few scraps of information we have and from practices common to the Boston area during his formative years. Although there is not a lot of information about Pickering and his family life in Boston, Pickering’s lineage has received close scrutiny in a three-volume genealogy published in 1897 by Harrison Ellery and Charles Pickering Bowditch, two descendants of the Pickering line.3 The genealogy spans nine generations and reveals that Edward Charles Pickering descended from one of New England’s oldest and most distinguished families.

The family history starts with John Pickering, Edward’s first American ancestor, who emigrated from Yorkshire, England with his wife Elizabeth in 1636, and settled in Salem, Massachusetts, after spending several years in Ipswich. Within a few years, John Pickering had acquired several dozen acres of land outside of Salem, on which he established the family home.4 Two of John Pickering’s children are known to have survived childhood: John and Jonathan. After their father died, John, the oldest son, inherited most of the family property, residing on the farmstead with his wife Alice and five children—John, Benjamin, William, Elizabeth, and Hannah. Not only was he a capable farmer, continually adding acreage to the family estate, but he was also a devoted civic servant, filling a variety of offices, including constable and town councilman. He also served as a lieutenant in the local militia, distinguishing himself in the Indian War of 1675, also known as King Phillip’s War. Like his father, John Pickering bequeathed the family farm to his oldest son, also named John, who became a well-respected citizen of Salem, filling the office of city councilman as well as representing the area in the Massachusetts General Court. He too expanded the family estate, willing portions of it upon his death to his wife Sarah and their six children—John, Theophilus, Timothy, Lois, Sarah, and Eunice.

At this point, Edward Pickering’s family line descends not from John and Sarah’s oldest son, John, or their second eldest, Theophilus, but from their third child, Timothy, who was born in Salem in 1702. Known locally as “Deacon Pickering” for his involvement in Salem’s Trinitarian Church, Deacon Pickering was a man of firm conviction, moral character, and great piety. He was also industrious, enlarging the Pickering family estate, which he had inherited from his father, and through his frugality, providing education to his nine children, including sending his two sons—John and Timothy—to Harvard College, the first in his family to do so.

Perhaps the most illustrious member of Edward Pickering’s ancestral line is his great-grandfather Col. Timothy Pickering, Deacon Pickering’s youngest son. As the youngest son, Col. Pickering inherited a much smaller share of the family estate, most of it going to his oldest brother, another John Pickering. As such, rather than spend his life on the family farm or in business affairs of his own, Timothy joined the Fourth Military Company of Salem, rising to the level of captain in 1769. For the next few years, Captain Pickering served Salem and the surrounding county in several capacities: as city councilman, town clerk, justice of the peace, and register of deeds.

Never straying too far from his interest in military affairs, Timothy was appointed Colonel of the First Regiment of Essex County Militia in 1775, and, due to his law background, Adjutant-General of the United States Army two years later. A frequent visitor to General Washington’s headquarters, Col. Pickering soon became a favorite of the Continental Army’s high command. The association led to his appointment as one of three members of the Continental Board of War, and then to Quartermaster-General of the Army. Although he retained the rank of colonel, he was paid at the higher rate of brigadier-general. After the war, Col. Pickering found himself once again in the employment of the federal government: this time as Postmaster-General, a position he accepted in 1791. Four years later, he was appointed Secretary of War, which included oversight over the Army, the Navy, and Indian Affairs. During the same year, Col. Pickering became acting Secretary of State under President Washington.

After serving nine years in two different administrations—under Presidents Washington and Adams—Col. Pickering returned to private life. But that did not last long. In 1803, a year after he lost a bitter fight to represent the Federalist Party in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Massachusetts General Court elected Col. Pickering to succeed retiring senator Dwight Foster. He was re-elected by popular vote two years later, whereupon he began a six-year term in the U.S. Senate. After his tenure in the Senate, Col. Pickering was elected by an overwhelming majority to represent Essex County North District in the Thirteenth U.S. Congress. Col. Pickering retired from public service in 1818 and for the next decade, before his death in 1829, lived in Salem, visiting the family farm in Wenham quite often. Like his ancestors before him, farming was in his blood, and living close to the land at the end of his life pleased him more than anything else. Col. Pickering married Rebecca White of Bristol, England, and raised seven children to adulthood—John, Timothy, Henry, Charles, William, George, and Octavius.

Of the seven children, Col. Pickering’s eldest son, John, Edward Pickering’s grandfather, concerns us the most. Not only does he represent the direct line of descent to Edward, but also he is the most fascinating, accomplished, and esteemed of his siblings. In many ways, he is just like his father—industrious and ambitious. Born in Salem in 1777, John Pickering grew up under the watchful eye of his unmarried uncle, who occupied the family residence in Wenham north of Salem. After a childhood of public schooling and private tutors, John left for Cambridge, where he studied law at Harvard. After graduating from Harvard in 1796, John moved to Philadelphia to practice law in the office of Edward Tilgman. But eight months later, he found himself on a boat headed to Lisbon, Portugal, to fulfill the duties of Secretary of Legation. Two years later, he moved to London, where he became Secretary of Legation under Rufus King, the U.S. Minister to England.

John Pickering returned to Salem at the end of the summer in 1801, working in the law office of his cousin, Samuel Putnam. After being admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1804, he left his cousin’s practice and opened his own office in Salem. But he never forgot his experience abroad, especially his growing interest in language, of which he had mastered not only Latin and Greek, but also a variety of other languages, including Hebrew. His intimate knowledge of language, which included the languages of many North American Indians, drew the attention of several Harvard professors, so much so that, between 1806 and 1812, he was twice offered a professorship to teach language at his alma mater.5 Pickering declined both offers, not only because of his successful law practice, but also because of his expanding engagement in politics, which included representing Salem in the Massachusetts General Court and Essex County in the Massachusetts State Senate. In 1818, he was appointed to the prestigious Governor’s Council. Due to his increasing legislative responsibilities, he moved to Boston at the end of 1826 and soon was serving as city alderman, city solicitor, and state senator representing Suffolk County.

In 1832, John Pickering moved to 73 Beacon Street with his wife Sarah White Pickering, where he resided until his death. Like his father, John Pickering was a learned and accomplished scholar, a man of letters, and the author of several books, including a critically-acclaimed lexicon of the Greek language and the first dictionary of American idioms. Along with Harvard (where he served as a member of the Board of Overseers), he had affiliations with the Boston Latin School, the Boston Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. John Pickering died on May 5, 1846, two-and-a-half months before his grandson, Edward Charles Pickering, was born. He was survived by his wife Sarah and three adult children—Charles, Sarah, and Edward.

It is the youngest sibling, Edward Pickering, who concerns us the most, for he is Edward Charles Pickering’s father. Like many of his male forebears, Edward Pickering—John Pickering’s youngest son—attended Harvard, graduating in 1824 at the age of 17. After working in New York City for several years, Edward returned to Boston to study law with his uncle. Rather than practice law, however, Edward developed an interest in financial management and wound up working for several large organizations, including the Boston and Maine Railroad, the United States Hotel Company, and the Boston Society of Natural History. But it is not the various business and civic organizations that the elder Edward Pickering worked for that tell the story of his climb up Boston’s social and economic ladder. Rather, it is Edward’s successive residences in and around Boston’s financial district that illustrate that ascent, a record of which is contained in The Boston Directory, an annual directory of the addresses of every Boston resident and business, first published in 1789.6

The first street Edward lived on after returning to Boston from New York was Franklin Street, which is also the same street on which Edward’s uncle, John Pickering, lived. We know this from John Pickering’s daughter’s memoir of her father, where she writes: “On removing to Boston a house was taken in Franklin Street (No. 5), on the southern side, between Hawley Street and Washington Street, in a new brick block of four houses, owned by Mr. Barnabas Hedge, of Plymouth.”7 Since there is no house number listed for Edward Pickering until the 1830 directory, we can only assume that he stayed with his uncle on Franklin Street when he moved to Boston.

Franklin Street is about two blocks east of Tremont Street, which runs along the eastern edge of Boston Common. It is also close to the Old Granary Burying Ground and the Boston Athenaeum. Located between Beacon Hill’s upscale South Slope neighborhood and Boston’s thriving downtown business district, a house on Franklin Street was more for convenience than for advertising one’s social and economic status. Edward’s next address, listed in the directory’s 1831 edition as 18 Pearl Street, appears to be another residence of convenience. It is the address of Octavius Pickering, John Pickering’s youngest brother and Edward’s uncle. Edward lived at 18 Pearl Street with his uncle for five years until Octavius moved to 70 Beacon Street in 1837, just down the street from his brother’s residence at 73 Beacon Street. By establishing their family homes in Beacon Hill across from Boston Common, John and Octavius Pickering epitomized the social and economic ladder the Pickering family was determined to climb.

Edward, too, was determined to climb that ladder, and, like his father and his uncle, he had the wherewithal to do so: he was a graduate of Harvard’s law school and a member of a prominent New England family. For Edward, the next step up that ladder is reflected in his next address: 43 Bowdoin Street. The year is 1842, five years after Octavius relocated to Beacon Street. It is a significant year for the elder Edward for several reasons. First of all, Bowdoin Street, a mere stone’s throw from the Massachusetts State House, is closer to the affluent neighborhoods of Beacon Hill’s South Slope district, a sure sign of Edward’s aspiring upward mobility.

The move to Bowdoin Street also marks the beginning of a new chapter in Edward’s life. It is the year of his marriage to Charlotte Hammond, the daughter of Daniel Hammond, a successful Boston merchant. Later that year, the couple would celebrate the birth of their first child, Ellen Hammond Pickering. Edward and Charlotte lived at 43 Bowdoin Street for the next seven years. During this time, they witnessed the birth of a second child, Edward Charles Pickering. They would have a third child, William Henry Pickering, but he would not be born while the family lived at 43 Bowdoin Street. By William’s birth, some twelve years later, Edward and Charlotte Pickering lived at a different address—74 Mount Vernon Street—in Beacon Hill’s tony South Slope neighborhood. They would reside at this address until their children were grown. It was an address of which they were extremely proud, as ...

Table of contents

• Preface
• CHAPTER 1 | Land of Living Waters
• CHAPTER 2 | Reading, Writing, Refmetic
• CHAPTER 3 | Schools and Schoolmasters
• CHAPTER 4 | The Leaven of Improvement
• CHAPTER 5 | “Old Sheff”
• CHAPTER 6 | An Impenetrable Thicket
• CHAPTER 7 | Bridge to the Future
• CHAPTER 8 | Outshine Them All
• CHAPTER 9 | Objects and Plan
• CHAPTER 10 | The New Education
• CHAPTER 11 | With His Own Hands
• Significant Events
• Chapter Notes
• Bibliography
• Copyright
• About the Author
• The Author’s Bookshelf
• Recommended for You