304 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLV. No. 1161 



is not actively engaged in research. The future is 

 in our hands, let us prove ourselves worthy. 



THE GORDON McKAY ENDOWMENT FOR 

 APPLIED SCIENCE 



In the Harvard Alumni Bulletin tlie situa- 

 tion in regard to the McKay bequest is re- 

 viewed. It was a little more than three years 

 ago that the agreement of cooperation between 

 Harvard University and the Massachusetts 

 Institute of Technology for instruction in the 

 field of the engineering sciences was an- 

 nounced. The funds for putting these plans 

 into effect are drawn from the great bequest 

 of Gordon McKay to Harvard University, 

 made for the purpose of establishing a school 

 of applied science. This fund is held by trus- 

 tees who, under the terms of Mr. McKay's 

 will, have already transferred about two mil- 

 lion dollars to the university and are ex- 

 pected, on the death of all the annuitants pro- 

 vided for, to bring the total payments to $22,- 

 000,000. The cooperative arrangement between 

 Tech and Harvard was no sooner made known 

 than the McKay trustees, of whom the late 

 James J. Myers, '69, was one, objected to it 

 on the ground that it would not fulfil the 

 wishes of Gordon McKay, who might have be- 

 queathed his fortune to Technology, but delib- 

 erately committed it to Harvard instead. Ac- 

 cordingly the plan of cooperation has been put 

 only into provisional practise in the new build- 

 ings of Technology. To ascertain whether the 

 arrangement could be made permanent, the 

 Harvard authorities, after introducing certain 

 changes into the agreement, designed to meet 

 some of the objections of the McKay trustees, 

 petitioned the Supreme Court of Massachu- 

 setts to pass upon the legality of the arrange- 

 ment. 



The case has now come before Judge Pierce 

 of that court for a hearing to determine the 

 facts on which the court's interpretation of 

 the law must be based. Charles F. Choate and 

 Mr. John G. Milburn, of New York, appeared 

 as chief counsel, respectively, for Harvard 

 University and the McKay trustees. There 

 was much reading of docmnents. President 

 Eliot, President Lowell, President Maelaurin 

 of the Institute, and Mr. Prank P. Stanley, 



one of the trustees, appeared as witnesses. 

 The testimony presented bore upon the history 

 of the negotiations between Harvard and Tech, 

 and of instruction in applied science at Har- 

 vard; also upon the method and extent of the 

 control secured to Harvard, under the agree- 

 ment, in the expenditure of the McKay be- 

 quest. The hearing lasted three days. In due 

 time the case wUl go to the full bench for argu- 

 ment. 



The provisions of Mr. McKay's will include 

 the following: 



The net income of said endowment shall be used 

 to promote applied science: 



First. By maintaining professorships, work- 

 shops, laboratories and collections for any or all of 

 those scientific subjects, which have, or may here- 

 after have, applications useful to man, and 



Second. By aiding meritorious and needy stu- 

 dents in pursuing those subjects. 



Inasmuch as a large part of my life has been de- 

 voted to the study and invention of machinery, I 

 instruct the president and fellows to take special 

 care that the great subject of mechanical engineer- 

 ing in all its branches and in the most comprehen- 

 sive sense, be thoroughly provided for from my 

 endowment. 



I direct that the president and fellows be free to 

 provide from the endowment all grades of instruc- 

 tion in applied science, from the lowest to the high- 

 est, and that the instruction provided be kept ac- 

 cessible to pupils who have had no other opportuni- 

 ties of previous education than those which the free 

 public schools afford. 



I direct that the salaries attached to the pro- 

 fessorships maintained from the endowment be kept 

 liberal, generation after generation, according to 

 the standards of each successive generation, to the 

 end that these professorships may always be at- 

 tractive to able men and that their effect may be to 

 raise, in some judicious measure, the general scale 

 of compensation for the teachers of the university. 



I direct that the professors supported from this 

 endowment be provided with suitable assistance in 

 their several departments, by the appointment of 

 instructors of lower grades, and of draughtsmen, 

 foremen, mechanics, clerks or assistants, as occa- 

 sion may require, my desire being that the pro- 

 fessors be free to devote themselves to whatever 

 part of the teaching requires the greatest skill and 

 largest experience, and to the advancement of their 

 several subjects. 



I direct that the president and fellows be free to 



