Excerpt from History of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1824-1894 Having recently been compelled to write several brief historical sketches of the Institute the writer became interested in its early history. In preparing these narratives he found the official publications giving the characteristics of the School at the time of its foundation to have become very rare. In fact, very few of them antedating 1840 are known to be in existence. For these reasons he determined to expand the sketches and publish a short history of the Institution which should consist largely of a description of the development of its curriculum. The student of the history of education will recognize the importance of an account of the early methods of instruction pursued in an institution which was, at once, the first School of Science and the first School of Civil Engineering to be established in any English-speaking country, and if the conceded originality of these methods be also considered it is believed that no excuse for the appearance of this somewhat condensed narrative will be thought necessary. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.