elected U.S. Senator from Vermont. Education and apprenticeship During his education in Rhode Island, Flanders received a solid grounding in mathematics, literature, Latin and Classical Greek. In addition, he acquired a working knowledge of German and French. According to Senator John Sparkman, when Flanders was in the Senate, Sparkman and he used to converse in Latin during committee meetings. Unable to afford college tuition after his high school graduation, in 1896 Flanders's father bought him a two-year apprenticeship at the Brown & Sharpe Manufacturing Company, a leading machine tool builder. In addition to learning machining and drafting during his apprenticeship, Flanders also supplemented his training through courses at the International Correspondence Schools. Following his apprenticeship, he worked for various machine tool companies in New England. Despite his lack of a formal university education, he was a self-taught scholar, who read extensively in the literatures of science, engineering and the liberal arts. Technical journalism Flanders began writing early in his career, and his published articles on machine tool technology led to a job as an editor of Machine magazine in New York City. This job, which he held between 1905 and 1910, required him to cover developments in the machine tool industry. He traveled widely to visit the companies that he wrote about, which provided him many valuable contacts with leaders in the industry. As editor, he wrote articles on gear tooth systems, gear cutting machinery, hobs, and the manufacture of cans and automobiles, including Machine's reference series on the subject. In 1909, while working long hours on his definitive book on gear cutting machinery, his energy gave out and he suffered a "nervous breakdown". He took time off to recover, and in 1910 he accepted an offer to work at a machine tool company in Vermont. He continued to write on technical and other matters throughout his life and developed a broad philosophy of the role of industry in society. In 1938, he received a Worcester Reed Warner Medal in recognition of his technical writing. Engineering Flanders's first major experience in machine design came when he helped an entrepreneur in Nashua, New Hampshire develop a box-folding machine. After that, he worked as a draftsman for General Electric until 1905, when he moved to New York City to work for Machine. In 1910, he moved to Springfield, Vermont to work as a mechanical engineer for the Fellows Gear Shaper Company. He