Page History

 
A subject in metallography had also been developed. in the Department of Chemistry by Professors Fay and Williams. Henry Fay, in addition to being Professor of Analytical Chemistry, had done pioneering research in metallography. In 1898 he had published a ground-breaking investigation, "The Segregation of Carbon in a Piece of Boiler Plate." In World War I he was a consultant on metallurgy for Winchester Repeating Arms Company, 
a precedent for many similar arrangements during World War II. Robert S. Williams joined Fay in metallography as a member of the Department of Chemistry, having returned to MIT in 1907 after receiving a Doctor's degree under Tammann in Gottingen. Lastly, in the Department of MechanicaLEngineering, Dr. Igor N. Zavarine and J. Weston Pratt conducted a heat treatment laboratory, which included some instruction in metallography. 
Hayward wrote in his "Reminiscences" (p. 10): 
.. All these laboratories were requiring new and expensive equipment and finally President Maclaurin decided to settle the matter by combining the three .... Professor Sauveur's departure for Harvard left Professor Fay as the senior professor teaching Metallography and Dr. Maclaurin decreed that he was to be in charge. He also decided that the new laboratory was to be set up ... in the Mechanical Department. 
"I immediately called on Dr. Maclaurin and protested that metallography should be kept in the Metallurgy Department, that the interest of chemists and mechanical engineers was understandable but that fundamentally it was a branch of metallurgy. I pressed my point rather hard but in the end he weakened only a little. He reiterated his decision that there must be orily one laboratory which must be in the space designated in the Mechanical Department. ... He said that Dr. Fay was to be in charge of the course but that details of instruction could be worked out by a conference among those who were specifically involved. 
"Such a conference never took place ... and the three courses continued much as before except that they used a common laboratory in charge oIVO. Homerberg. who then had the title of Instructor in Chemistry. 
'The combined laboratory worked out very satisfactorily and made it possible to secure some of the latest equipment .... 
"The inauguration of Dr. Stratton as president brought an important change in the status of Metallography. He expressed great astonishment at its mixed status and stated positively that it was metallurgy and must be regarded as such. He was quite familiar with the fact that metallography and heat treatment were rapidly developing into a new and erilarged field called Physical Metallurgy and one of his first important acts was to give this new development a proper status at MIT." 
Homerberg was a graduate of Course X Chemical Engineering. He became a graduate student in Metallurgy and received a doctorate in 1927, which was followed by his appointment as an Assistant Professor. Professor Williams transferred from the Department of Chemistry to the Department of Mining and Metallurgy in 1927. Dr. Zavarine and Mr. Pratt were moved with the heat treatment laboratory from the Department of Mechanical Engineering to the Department of Mining and Metallurgy. 
The Undergraduate Curriculum 
A new curriculum was adopted in April 1915. It offered three options: a general option in Mining and Metallurgy; a Metallurgy option which had been entirely revised and in which metallurgical and metallographic studies had been strengthened; and a Mining and Geological option. 
The introduction of the new curriculum was upset by the effects of World War I. The report of the Department for 1918-19 comments on the interference by the Student Army Training Corps program with the academic program end mentions an emergency curriculum which was in effect for several years. 
In response to the new status of physical metallurgy, an option in this subdiscipline was established in 1927-28. This option substituted applied optics, industrial radiology, optical identification of crystalline compounds, and physical crystallography for engineering courses taken by production metallurgists. In commenting on the new option, the President's Report mentioned the "growing importance of. .. preparing metals for specific and new uses, for creating hitherto unknown properties or the enhancement of physical properties by alloying and \[heat\] treating" (President's Report for 1927-28, p. 19). With the introduction of the new option, the undergraduate options were Mining Engineering, Petroleum Production, Metallurgy and Physical Metallurgy. 
In 1931-32, three new subjects were introduced as electives open to graduate and undergraduate students. One subject was aluminum and magnesium alloys. The President's Report 
for that year called attention to the growing importance of light metals for the aircraft industry. A second new subject was welding metallurgy. The Report mentioned the role of welding in manufacturing and added: "It is believed that the Institute is the first educational institution in the country which offers instruction in this subject." The third subject was corrosion and heat-resistant alloys, which, in retrospect, was a particularly appropriate choice, in view of their emerging role within a relatively few years. 
The choice between emphasis on nonferrous and on ferrous metallurgy that had been made available in 1922 was eliminated in 1937. Similarly, the option of Physical Metallurgy was dropped when a unified course in Metallurgy was reintroduced in the Fall term of 1938. 
Ceramics Laboratory 
Graduate Studies 
MIT granted its first Master's degree in 1886 in Chemistry. By the 1890s, the number of Master's degrees had greatly increased (Prescott, p. 297). After the turn of the century, the number of Doctor's degrees increased rapidly. Graduate studies had been encouraged by President Crafts, a distinguished organic chemist, and Professor Noyes, the first Director of the Research Laboratory in Physical Chemistry. 
The Department of Mining Engineering, later the Department of Mining Engineering and Metallurgy, offered graduate courses relatively early, but graduate degrees in this field had a slow start (Prescott, p. 297). The first Master's degree in Metallurgy was awarded in 1923, as was the first Doctor's degree (MIT Alumni Register, p. xv). 
By 1934-35, Master's and Doctor's degrees could be earned in four areas of the Department, of which metallurgy was one. A degree program in ceramics was also available (President's Reports for 1923-24, 1925-26, 1932-33). 
It should be mentioned that, in addition to research by graduate students under faculty supervision, a limited amount of research was carried out independently by the academic staff. 
Enrollment 
The total enrollment of the Department showed a downward trend in the 1920s, but the number of students studying metallurgy increased. This was especially true for graduate students in physical metallurgy (President's Report for 1930-31, p. 123). Ferrous metallurgy was particularly popular (President's Report for 1928-29). There were at least 10 graduate students in metallurgy in 1924-25, seven of whom were candidates for the Doctor's degree.