436 WILLIAM BARTON ROGERS. 



mined upon taking the preliminary steps towards the organization of 

 such an institution. A sub-committee was charged with preparing a 

 plan ; and the result was a document, written by Professor Rogers, 

 entitled " Objects and Plan of an Institute of Technology." That 

 document gave birth to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for 

 it enlisted sufficient interest to authorize the committee to go forward. 

 A charter with a conditional grant of land was obtained fi'om the 

 legisl'iture in 18G1, and the institution was definitely organized, and 

 Professor Rogers appointed President, April 8, 1862. Still, the final 

 plans were not matured and it was not until May 30, 1864, that the 

 government of the new institution adopted the report prepared by its 

 President, entitled " Scope and Plan of the School of Industrial Sci- 

 ence of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology," which Dr. Runkle 

 has called the "intellectual charter" of the institution, and which he 

 states " has been followed in all essential points to this very day." In 

 striking confirmation of what we have written above, Dr. Runkle fur- 

 ther says : — 



" In this document we see more clearly the breadth, depth, and 

 variety of Professor Rogers's scientific knowledge, and his large ex- 

 perience in college teachuig and discipline. It needed just this com- 

 bination of acquirements and experience to put his conceptions into 

 working shape, to group together those studies and exercises which 

 naturally and properly belong to each professional course, and thus 

 enable others to see the guiding lines which must direct and limit their 

 work in its relations to the demands of other departments 



" The experimental element in our school — a feature which has 

 been widely recognized as characteristic — is undoubtedly due to the 

 stress and distinctness given to it in the ' Scope and Plan.' In our 

 discipline we must also give credit to the tact and large-hearted ness of 

 Professor Rogers in the fact that we are entirely free from all petty 

 rules and regulations relating to conduct, free from all antagonism 

 between teachers and students." 



The associates of Professor Rogers in this Academy — many of 

 them his associates also in the Institute of Technology, or in the 

 Society of Arts, which was so important a feature of the organization — 

 will remember with what admiration they watched the indefixtigable care 

 with which its ever active President fostered the young life of the insti- 

 tution he had created. They know how, during the earlier years, he 

 bore the whole weight of the responsibility of the trust he had volun- 

 tarily and unselfishly assumed for the public good ; how, while by his 

 personal influence obtaining means for the daily support of the school, 



