Education: Finished Engines

At any time of day, Yale students had a way of finding out where salty Professor Herbert L. Seward might be. In his office in Strathcona Hall stood the engine-room telegraphs that had once relayed orders from the bridge of the S.S. Leviathan. If the professor was going to class, he rang up "Full Speed Ahead." "Dead Slow" meant out to lunch; "Full Speed Astern" meant a faculty meeting. At the end of each day the professor signaled "Finished Engines."

To students admitted to his classes in naval architecture and marine engineering, this sort...

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