HON. MARSHALL P. WILDER. 69 



M. Denman Ross, Esq., in behalf of the Massachusetts 

 Institute of Technology, responded as follows : — 



There are in the city of Boston several institutions 

 which owe their existence almost wholly to a band of 

 workers who have been for the past quarter of a cen- 

 tury laboring to build them up solely for the public 

 good. Mr. Wilder has been among the foremost of 

 this band. He is a man " born to lead and com- 

 mand." In all the enterprises of the day in which 

 he has taken a part, his fertile genius has been in- 

 voked, and has greatly characterized the matter in 

 hand. 



About the year 1857 there was a movement in the 

 city of Boston to increase the facilities of the Boston 

 Society of Natural History, and to create a Polytechnic 

 and a Fine Art Institute. The Massachusetts Hor- 

 ticultural Society was also seeking to find space for 

 a home. I was a member of a self-constituted com- 

 mittee representing the several interests referred to, 

 who called on Governor Banks, and we asked him 

 to give us his co-operation in influencing the Legis- 

 lature then in session to set apart, or reserve from 

 sale, about twenty acres of the space on the Back Bay 

 in the city of Boston. I say space instead of land, 

 for the reason that what is now the most beautiful 



