982 



SCIENCE. 



[X. S. Vol. XXI. Xo. 548. 



gard as absolutely essential to the well- 

 being of the Institute and to the efficiency 

 of its Avork. * * * 



The Department of Architecture. 

 A thoroughly objectionable section of 

 the agreement is that which excludes the 

 Department of Architecture from its pro- 

 visions, leaving the future of one of the 

 original and one of the most brilliantly 

 successful departments of the Institute 

 wholly unsettled and problematical. * * * 



Loss of Alumni Interest and Support. 



Another disadvantage of the alliance is 

 the danger that the interest and support 

 of the graduates of the Institute will be 

 sacrificed. An important element in the 

 organic growth of an educational institu- 

 tion is a strong, well-organized association 

 of its alumni, the men who can best appre- 

 ciate the advantages and needs of the insti- 

 tution and who know the places where it 

 can be strengthened. The Institute has 

 such an Alumni Association, with local 

 branches in all parts of the United States, 

 and with a compact subsidiary organiza- 

 tion in the form of an Association of Class 

 Secretaries which has proved itself to be 

 useful and efficient, and which promises to 

 grow in importance. The alumni have 

 shown a deep and enthusiastic loyalty, 

 which has taken a practical form in sub- 

 scription for the William Barton Rogers 

 Scholarship Fund, the AValker ]\Iemorial 

 Building, and, more recently and gener- 

 ously, for the Technology Fund. If the 

 proposed alliance is accomplished, the in- 

 terest of the alumni is sure to diminish 

 with their diminished responsibility for the 

 maintenance of the Institute, and may be 

 altogether alienated. The loyalty of fu- 

 ture graduates would at best be a divided 

 sentiment. 



Conclusion. 



An institution which has passed beyond 

 its formative period has a right, as a man 

 has, to its own character and individuality. 

 It has earned the right to grow and change 

 along its own lines, and not to be violently 

 wrenched out of them and made over, 

 under new and untried influences, into 

 something different from itself. Such a 

 course might be justifiable as a desperate 

 expedient in the case of a demoralized and 

 decaying school. But the Institute is in 

 no sense a decaying institution. While 

 making no claim to perfection, it desires 

 nothing so earnestly as a fuller and richer 

 though not necessarily a larger growth. 



In point of numbers, however, the Insti- 

 tute, despite a steady increase in its re- 

 quirements for admission and an excep- 

 tionally high tuition fee, is more than hold- 

 ing its own, not only in Massachusetts, but 

 throughout New England, and not only in 

 New England but throughout the United 

 States. Our defects — and no one is more 

 conscious of them or more desirous to 

 amend them than is the Faculty — are in 

 part consequences of growth and of suc- 

 cess. In part, however, they are inevitable 

 defects of the qualities which have made 

 us what we are. The lack of academic 

 leisure and of monumental college sur- 

 roundings, and the absence of a great part 

 of the social and athletic life of the tj'pical 

 American college, — such losses are a neces- 

 sary price which we and our students pay 

 for the spirit of professional study, of 

 business-like regularity, and of scientific 

 accuracy. In the training of engineers we 

 believe that these qualities are worth vastly 

 more than the desirable things which we 

 sacrifice in order to obtain them. While 

 continuing to insist upon these qualities, 

 we shall be glad, so far as we can safely 

 do so, to diminish their defects. But we 

 believe that we can best accomplish this by 



