the new south creed

While reading the article for this week, I was confronted by several interesting realizations. While I read about the founding of Georgia Tech and the cultural pressures that fueled it, I realized how little I actually knew about the college I attend. I suppose I just figured the Institute had somehow always been how it is today; a leading technical institution in the country. I found myself wondering, what would Georgia Tech be like today if the shop culture had remained on the campus. The school may have taken a drastically different path in history, or possibly even fallen apart into nothing. If the institution had been more like the other agricultural universities, is it possible it may have simply become merged with another school like the one in Athens? 

I became aware of the desperation in the south following the civil war, and how the south's subordination to the north is what drove the creation of a technical institution. Georgia Tech is unique because of the varying views of its founders. While many supported a hands on approach, many more argued for a theoretical approach to higher learning, much like MIT had to offer. The fire in the shop house was a major turning point for the college. The curriculum became almost entirely focused on higher learning in order to keep the institute alive. This school served a greater purpose than that of training men for the workforce; it was a command center for the south's war against northern industrialism. The south would now be able to compete in the industrial market. Was the college truly able to bring this sort of power to the southern states? Although the school only graduated about 100 students in its first decade, the impact it had on the society in general is immeasurable.