Engineering Education in Hawai`i
Prior to 1965

Engineering and agriculture share the distinction of being the progenitors of all higher education in Hawai`i. The College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts of the Territory of Hawai`i opened in September 1908 in temporary quarters near Thomas Square. There were five regular students and four of them were engineering students but John Mason Young was the only engineer in a faculty of eleven members.

The College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts changed its name to the College of Hawai`i in 1911 and moved to the Manoa Campus. John Mason Young continued as Engineer of the College and taught approximately half of all the engineering courses. He also acted as Dean of the College when it had no president and as Acting President during the absence of President Arthur L. Dean. In 1920, after the College of Hawai`i was reorganized as the University of Hawai`i, Young became president of the Pacific Engineering Company, but he continued to teach part-time at the University, until he retired in 1938. For thirty years he taught structural design to all engineering seniors. As president of Pacific Engineering Company he designed and supervised the construction of some of the early buildings of the University. John Mason Young can truly be called the father of Engineering Education in Hawai`i.

In 1909 Arthur R. Keller joined the College faculty as professor of civil engineering. Keller was a man of many talents and boundless energy. He even played football on the College of Hawai`i team in 1911. He had a positive genius for wringing the maximum benefit out of every dollar in the meager budget of the College. The Legislature appropriated $75,000 to build Hawai`i Hall when the College moved to Manoa in 1912, but characteristically provided nothing for sidewalks, roads, and drainage. Keller concocted a project to test materials and methods of road construction to which the City of Honolulu contributed equipment, the Territory contributed materials and Keller, with his engineering students provided plans, supervision and materials testing. When the project ended the City and the Territory had valuable data for specifications for road construction and Campus Road had been paved at no cost to the University. The City planned a drainage system for a real estate development which would dump water onto College lands and flood them in heavy rains. Keller designed a better system to divert storm water to Manoa stream. Engineering students surveyed the route. Keller drew up finished plans, presented them to the mayor, and induced the City to adopt them, incidentally providing storm drainage for College lands.

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