PARKER’S AIDS. . .
The Mystery Began And Ended
On a Page From The Diary Of
A Professor of Engineering
A great deal of work goes into the preparations for a Centennial And the Engineers are going to have one next fall.
Frequently such preparations are routine – almost ritualistic. Once in a while, though, there is a little straying, a little day-dreaming.
Last month Cleland Wyllie, Editor of Information and News Services, invited a group of University public relations people to lunch and confer with Dean George Granger Brown, Professor Stephen Attwood, and Edmund Dandridge, all of the College of Engineering.
The object was to outline press, radio, and television handling of the forthcoming Engineering Centennial.
Before the meeting adjourned Dean Brown created a stirring.
“There’s a wealth of material in our Department. Why, you could almost forget entirely what’s being done presently in the College of Engineering and concentrate on what has been done.”
It looked for a moment as if the next few summer months would be spent in the archives. What a drab prospect for the news writer with an obsession for the up-to-date.
“For example,” Dean Brown continued, “there’s the mystery about Parker’s Aids.”
That was almost, but not quite, enough to catch the imagination of those listening.
“There is mention somewhere of a course called Parker’s Aids in the very first days of the Engineering School, but no one can find the listing of such a course in the catalogs. . . No one seems to know anything about Parker’s Aids.”
That was enough! The Alumnus took the bait and thrashed like a mad marlin in the deep waters of early University literature for a steady ninety-six hours.
SEVERAL THEORIES
The theories were in part preposterous, in part seductively plausible. But it looked for a while as if Dean Brown had hooked curiosity with the deft and skill of a master public relations artist himself.
There was only one clue, and that was a diary written in longhand one hundred years ago. The waters were dark and mysterious.
Then with an explosive lunge the fish broke through the surf in one lat desperate effort to tear itself free from the bait.
“I’ve got it – Parker’s Aids – here it is!”
In Professor Winchell’s diary there is an entry dated January 20, 1854: “I have a mixed class in Surveying at 1 and ½ p.m. and a class in Parker’s Aids at 11 a.m.”
Professor Winchell was a man of great intellectual passion. And talents. When he arrived in Ann Arbor nearly one hundred years ago as the first full-fledged teacher of engineering courses, it was not until after he had crossed the continent in literally every means of transportation. His family became deathly ill with jaundice, fever, and what appears to have been bronchial pneumonia. To make matters worse, his efforts to liquidate some of his chattel ended in a legal attachment.
Yet he made Ann Arbor. His first observation was that the University allowance for housing – one hundred twenty dollars a year-appeared adequate in view of supply and demand. But how he envied the four faculty houses that were occupied by his senior colleagues!
“. . . and a class in Parker’s Aids at 11 a.m.”
Dean Brown was absolutely correct; that is the only mention anywhere of Parker’s Aids. And there is no catalog listing at such a course. Those early University catalogs are as neat and trim as a concert program, and can be folded flatly and inserted within the tails of a swallow-coat.
That exploded the first theory: Parker’s Aids couldn’t have been a course in and of itself. Secondary sources suggested that it might have been a set of mathematics tables of sines and cosines.
(Secondary sources are people with telephone numbers.?
This was the most influential group. Parker’s Aids must be a math table, used by civil engineers, especially surveyors. And a class in surveying, preceded by a class I Parker’s Aids – it was a natural!
But another group of secondary sources gave close competition. Their theory was that, even in those early days of 1850, students and instructors were not averse to giving nicknames to their pet courses. And Parker’s Aids sounds like a short, sweet, affectionate appellation for some longer, more awesome intellectual study.
Then, of course, there was the fourth possibility, almost too obvious to warrant looking twice at: Parker’s Aids was a textbook Alerting the Reference Room of the General Library, the marlin took a breather under a comfortable coral reef.
“Mr. Martin? We’ve found a book . . .”
“Oh, no! This can’t be it . . .That makes me out to be a Sucker.”
“. . . we’ve found a book. It’s dated 1851, and its title is ‘Aids to Composition,’ written by Richard Green Parker.
“Yes, Richard Green Parker’s Aids to English Composition enjoyed several editions, and the Library has the fifth, dated 1855.
“Oh, yes, and the catalog of that date has an interesting paragraph under the School of Engineering. Shall I read it to you?”
Why not?
“In the 1853-54 catalog, page 30-if you’re interested in documenting your search accurately-it says, ‘The students of the scientific department received instruction by lectures upon the History and Analysis of the English Language and give specific attention to the study of Rhetoric.’”
PROLIFIC PARKER
In the 1854-55 catalog the theory gained reality: . . . all members of the sophomore class . . . have a daily study in Rhetoric during the first term of the year in which a good text book is examined.”
Perhaps the answer lay in other books which the mysterious Parker wrote And, by golly, that seems to clinch it.
Parker’s Compendium of Natural and Experimental Philosophy was advertised by the A. S. Barnes Company as part of the “Chamber’s Educational Course.” The advertisement read: “Embracing the elementary principles of mechanics, hydrostatics, hydraulics, pneumatics, acoustics, pyronomics, optics, astronomy, Galvanism, magnetism, electro-magnetism, magneto-electricity, with a description of the steam and locomotive engines. Illustrated with numerous diagrams.” All this for one dollar!
Certainly the man who could write so authoritatively on things engineering was the man from whom engineers must study rhetoric. Judging from Professor Winchell’s interest in philosophy, both metaphysical and natural, he must have been acquainted with the prolific Parker.
Parker’s Aids was the first course in Engineering English. . .
The Michigan Alumnus
May 12, 1953, page 360
