The School of Practical Science

The tabs on the left offer snapshots of the Engineering student experience in the School of Practical Science (SPS) before it officially became the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering (FASE) in 1906. 

Note: Click on photographs throughout the exhibit to access additional descriptive information, and click again on photographs to magnify them.

The University of Toronto's Engineering program began as the "School of Practical Science," directed by principal John Galbraith. In these early days, it had only a few dozen students and, eventually, a single building, completed in 1878 and known fondly as the "Little Red Schoolhouse" (or "Skulehouse"). [2]

In those days things were different from what we have them now. That was before the electric street cars. Horse-cars and stage coaches ran on Yonge Street then, and I remember the stage coaches used to be parked in front of a tavern on Yonge Street just opposite where the Simpson store now stands.

Walter J. Francis, class of 1893 (Engineering Society. Transactions and Yearbook, 1923, p. 83-84)