the architecture program at the massachusetts institute of technology was founded in 1865, with the first courses taught in 1868. despite its founding within a technical school, the architecture program began as a course of general study that was more closely aligned with the liberal arts. william robert ware modeled the school as a modified version of the école des beaux-arts in paris, entrusting the program's design leadership to eugene letang, a french graduate of the école who was a strict teacher of precise draftsmanship and clear composition.