June 30, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



981 



the lawyers doubted whether the Univer- 

 sity could legally divest itself of a similar 

 right ? 



Probability that the Earlier Years of In- 

 stitute Work would be Absorbed by 



Harvard College. 

 Disaster to the integrity of the Insti- 

 tute's curriculum will, it seems to us, be 

 the logical result of this lack of definition 

 of the term 'industrial science,' when it is 

 taken in connection with the fact that the 

 College gives, and is likely to continue giv- 

 ing, elementary courses in mathematics, 

 and in chemical, physical, and engineering 

 subjects. It will be much more natural 

 for a student intending to get an engineer- 

 ing degree to take his elementary work in 

 the College. That such a result is antici- 

 pated by the framers of the agreement 

 would appear from the statement of Presi- 

 dent Pritchett that the stronger technical 

 schools are to take a forward step by which 

 they will be free from much elementary 

 work. 



Two special causes are likely to contri- 

 bute largely to this result. The first is 

 that the tuition fee at Harvard is $100 less 

 than that of the Institute. Even if the 

 fees were to be equalized, at a serious 

 financial loss to the Institute, there yet re- 

 mains the second fact that participation in 

 University athletics is open only to students 

 enrolled at Harvard. Boys who are in- 

 tending ultimately to become engineers, 

 but who are also ambitious of athletic dis- 

 tinction, or even those who desire the real 

 use rather than the partial privilege of 

 the Harvard playgrounds, would be likely 

 to take their elementary work in the Col- 

 lege rather than in the Institute. Under 

 existing conditions many parents prefer 

 the professional atmosphere to ' the acad- 

 emic, and send their sons to the Institute 

 rather for that reason than because they 



have any particular engineering career 

 definitely planned for them. It can hardly 

 be expected that this patronage would con- 

 tinue under the altered conditions now pro- 

 posed. 



Yet the most serious effect upon our cur- 

 riculum, in consequence of such a change of 

 methods, would be the loss of that absolute 

 control over our instruction which we con- 

 sider essential to the maintenance of our 

 standards. If we turn over our elemen- 

 tary scientific work to another faculty, 

 whose educational purposes and methods 

 are essentially different from ours, we 

 make impossible that close coordination of 

 studies which we consider a prerequisite 

 of successful technological education. 

 Courses of elementary instruction, actually 

 conducted by the Institute, not only give 

 us a rule of comparison between the scien- 

 tific preparation that is offered by students 

 coming from other institutions and that 

 which we desire and can insist upon, but 

 they insure an advantageous uniformity 

 of training to the great bulk of our stu- 

 dents in those scientific studies which are 

 the fundamentals of all technological edu- 

 cation. We do not view any prospect of 

 their abandonment with favor. 



Sacrifice of Control. 

 A further disadvantage of the proposed 

 agreement is the modification that it makes 

 in the present method of government of 

 the Institute. A new Executive Com- 

 mittee is created, of which at least three 

 members out of nine shall be members of 

 the Corporation of the University. It is 

 our opinion that under this arrangement 

 the 'organization, control, and traditions' 

 of the Massachusetts Institute of Technol- 

 ogy would not be so safeguarded as to in- 

 spire that confidence in the preservation 

 of its individuality and in the continuance 

 of its educational autonomy which we re- 



