UNIVERSITY'S COMPACT WITH TECHNOLOGY IS EXPLAINED

The following article, entitled "The Present Status of the Technology Agreement,' in the current issue of the Alumni Bulletin, gives a very comprehensive survey of the relations between the University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"More than two years ago Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology entered into an agreement for co-operative instruction in certain scientific subjects, to be conducted out of the income of the Gordon McKay Endowment. It is generally known that the Harvard Corporation has filed with the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts a bill for instructions to determine whether the income from this endowment can be used as the Agreement provides. The general situation may be summarized as follows:

"The Endowment directs that, after the payment of certain annuities, the property shall be paid to the University and the net income used by it to promote applied science 'by maintaining professorships, workshops, laboratories and collections for any or all of those scientific subjects which have or may hereafter have application useful to man,' and by aiding needy students in pursuing those subjects. The request is made that the name 'Gordon McKay' shall be permanently attached to the purposes for which the income is expended. There is no requirement that the income shall be expended for any particular department of the University, but Harvard must invest and care for the principal of the fund, expend the income and carry out the purposes of the trust. It may not delegate these duties to any other institution, and the principal question is whether it has done so by the Agreement with Technology.

Conduct of Courses Outlined.

"The Agreement provides, in general, that the University and Technology 'shall co-operate in the conduct of courses leading to degrees in Mechanical, Electrical, Civil and Sanitary Engineering, Mining and Metallurgy and in the promotion of research in those branches of applied science,' and that the work shall be conducted in the new Technology buildings in Cambridge. To these purposes Harvard will devote not less than three-fifths of the net income of the Gordon McKay Endowment and all of the net income from funds now credited to the Lawrence Scientific School. The Institute will devote the principal and income of all property held by it for these purposes. The funds so provided will be paid out through Technology for 'the payment of salaries, the maintenance of scholarships, the care of grounds, and the erection and maintenance of buildings and equipment,' etc., but all appropriations must be approved by the institution which supplies the funds, and buildings may be erected only from the share of the funds supplied by the Institute. The President of Technology is to be the executive head of all of the work, and he must report to both institutions. The Faculty of Technology will be enlarged by the addition of certain members of the instructing staff of Harvard and this new Technology Faculty shall, subject to such direction as the University shall give, prescribe the courses and condition of entrance leading to Harvard degrees. Technology has the same right of direction in regard to courses leading to Technology degrees, and each institution acting separately shall confer its own degrees. Additions may be made to the Technology Faculty, and each institution shall appoint and remove the members of that Faculty which are paid by it. The President of Harvard shall be entitled to sit with the committee that recommends the appointment of any new president of Technology. The Agreement may be terminated by either party upon at least five years' notice to the other party.

"The bill in equity filed by the University sets out the Agreement and the provisions of the Gordon McKay Endowment and states that in the opinion of the Harvard authorities the co-operative plan of education proposed by the Agreement is in complete accord with the provisions of the Endowment but that, as the present Trustees of the Endowment are doubtful of its legality, the University desires instruction from the court.

University to Control Expenditures.

"In support of the Agreement it is urged that under its provisions the University maintains complete control over the expenditure of the income of the McKay Endowment, and also over the administration and regulation of the education, as represented by Harvard degrees, to be furnished under the co-operative plan. The broad discrimination admitted to Harvard by Gordon McKay's will is believed to give the University a free hand in choosing the instrumentalities by which the education is to be furnished, so long as Harvard maintains complete power to direct those instrumentalities. Further considerations are that although Gordon McKay by an earlier will directed the establishment of a distinct and separate school, he changed his will in 1891 in such a way as to leave the matter of carrying out his wishes entirely in the hands of the University; and that the Corporation has proceeded on the belief that the proposed plan is the very best available to promote the education which McKay wanted to promote.

"The Trustees of the Endowment, in the brief they have filed, object to the Agreement on the ground that it gives to Technology complete control of the work of education and research in the applied sciences which, under the Gordon McKay Endowment, is entrusted to Harvard. In support of this position they urge that by the Agreement, the Faculty of Technology, enlarged by the addition of certain members of the teaching staff of the University, is given full charge of the work under the executive control of the President of Technology; that the Faculty of Technology so enlarged will consist of 16 University appointees and of 106 appointees of the Institute; that a faculty so constituted will not be a Harvard Faculty but a Technology Faculty; that as the work will be carried on by the Technology Faculty in Technology buildings and under the direction of the Technology President, the name of 'Gordon McKay' will be dissociated from Harvard and will become associated with Technology; that the provisions of the Endowment are not limited to promoting education and research in engineering, but include any scientific subjects which may have application useful to man and that the founds could be used to assist many departments now existing at the University; that, although the Agreement may be terminated on certain conditions, yet after the proposed arrangement has been entered upon, Harvard could never restore the equipment and plant it now possesses and would be in no position to resume such work advantageously."