of Tech." Is not the study of that intangible force worthy of pursuit, as we stand on the threshold of the vast possibilities of this great endowment? What manner of men will "Tech" send out-not simply with what learning and skill, but with what faiths and what spirit?

President Lowell of Harvard University, in his congratulatory address at the dedication exercises, said: "The most enduring creations known to modern history are the institutions of higher learning." One thinks of the church as more enduring than the university, but, looking backward, the historical distinctions between the two become confused-and a very interesting and very significant confusion it is. The most ancient universities were monastic seats, and the old monasteries were, at one time, certainly very efficient and very wonderful institutes of technology. Indeed, we of today must moderate our boasts until we have at least equaled the technical attainments of the great medieval monastic cathedral builders and illuminators. Theirs was a spirit sealed and certified by the highest accomplishment. Indeed, the highest technical attainments would seem to require something of a monastic spirit, an intense and altruistic devotion to the perfection of a thing, not for its own sake, not for rewards, but purely as an expression of the human spirit.

Mr. Ralph Adams Cram, the Boston architect, a member of the M. I. T. faculty and the author of the celebration pageant, certainly had something of this in mind when he arranged that imposing spectacle-he is a man who would. In his interesting little volume, "The Gothic Quest," he says: "A true school of architecture should be half college and half monastery. So indeed, in spirit, must be a true school of any technical art.

A little more touched with the Puritan spirit, but the same in essence of thought, was the whole trend of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge's address at dedication exercises, with his reference to lessons that "have no endowed pro

fessorships," and "form no part of any curriculum yet devised."

I do not doubt but that it is well that our great endowed universities have cast off the bands of their sectarian origin, but I am quite certain that their deeply religious birth was a very fine way in which to be born. A cultured man may possibly do without a very definite creed; but he cannot do without a grandfather who had one. If he is so unfortunate as to lack that strain in his parentage, he must discover a way to make up the deficiency.

It is in this respect, perhaps, that "Tech" is still young. And at this point one thinks most naturally of the new relations that are to exist between Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. According to this arrangement, as I understand it, Harvard sends her students to Tech for instruction in certain branches, paying a fixed price for the tuition, and closing her own courses in those branches. The student so instructed has choice of a Harvard or Tech degree. Certain perquisites of Harvard student life are, at the same time, thrown open to Tech men.

WILLIAM WELLES BOSWORTH Architect of the new building

At first glance it would seem that Tech does all the giving in this scheme; but I do not think so. Harvard is rich in spiritual tradition, and the technical student to whom Harvard life is thrown open has a new and very real opportunity. It may be many years before there are tangible results from this plan, but if, after many, many years, scientific and technical education can be imbued with the great spiritual and intellectual forces of such a university as Harvard, a very wonderful thing will have been done for the youth of coming generations.

I would not infer that this can come to Tech only as a borrowed light from Harvard. Quite otherwise, I like to believe that the genius of it are present in the institute itself, but certainly an association with Harvard is a most kindly atmosphere for their future development.

There is still something overstrained and feverish about the school work at Tech, with no room for those eizures and contemplations in which aiths and loyalties ripen. Often I feel

sad for boys that are thrown into that kind of a grind at a time of life when they have such need of hours to themselves in the right atmosphere. It would be very remarkable if we could find all this in a school only fifty years old (a church-founded school is never wholly young: it has the entire tradition of the church behind it); but it is quite certain that only by the development of that higher tradition can the Massachusetts Institute of Technology give to the country that priceless wealth which is our right expectation of it. As a mere collection of laboratories it can be easily duplicated or outdone at any time by a man of sufficient wealth.

If it is too much to expect that the same institution shall produce a specific skill and a broad culture, then Tech must become largely a post-graduate school, or turn out an abortive product. The alternative lies in a cooling down of the freshman and sophomore years of study, and the introduction of an element of which the college chapel is the usual symbol-an institution, I believe, for which the Tech plan does not provide. Otherwise it becomes a thing of merely material product and material bigness.

The local Boston newspapers (and how discouragingly local they are!) make much of this material bigness, boasting it to be "the greatest in the world," and all that kind of thing. They even had the lack of intelligence, or the bad taste, to misquote President Maclaurin as having said that "Tech was always ahead," when he actually said that the Institute must always "be looking ahead." In certain departments of its work the Institute may lead, and probably does-in chemical engineering and naval architecture, for example. I doubt if it would be wise for her to challenge comparison in certain other courses-in hydraulic engineering with Cornell, in railroad construction with Illinois, in straight civil engineering with grand old Rensselaer. I do not say these things by way of disparagement, but to clear the ground of the stupidities and provincialisms of

local brag, that we may appreciate the true greatness of the Institute as it enters on the second half-century of its work. That greatness lies in the remarkable steadiness and efficiency with which it carries out the purpose so clearly expressed by its founder, as quoted above-"not the manipulation and minute details of the arts, but the inculcation of all the scientific principles which form the basis and explanation of them"-that plus the "intangible and undefinable" spirit to which Mr. Monroe so feelingly referred in his address of farewell to old Rogers Hall, and the fuller and clearer development of which is the work of the future, Tech's open door-held open by the stalwart foot of the moral feeling of the Alumni.

Premising our account with these truths, we may safely abandon our

selves to rejoicing over the material splendors of the "new Tech."

The new buildings are situated on the Cambridge bank of Charles River, immediately east of Harvard Bridge, and one mile from Harvard Square. It occupies a plot of fifty acres, purchased at a price of one million dollars, including draining and grading. this, twenty-five acres are reserved for educational buildings, and twenty-five acres for student activities, including athletics and dormitory accommodations.

The unique feature of the plant is the housing of so extensive a school, with such varied departments, under a single roof.

The building in which this is accomplished may be described as a series of corridors built about three sides of a court, and leading to a principal unit

which is embellished with a colonnade of the Greek Ionic order, and surmounted by a dome of Roman style. Architecturally, the whole may be called a memory of Rome, chastened by the purer Greek spirit.

At the ends of the corridors are pavilions with ornamental columns, but so disposed as to avoid the Rennaisance character of unstructural classical adornment. Also, midway on each lateral corridor are entrances, facing on the court and flanked with tall col

umns.

The corridors themselves are a series of piers, or pilasters, surmounted with a deep and massive frieze and cornice. No capitals, unless we call a simple molding such as are used at the pilaster heads, and the spaces between them are almost wholly of glass. The windows have no arched tops, nor do arches spring from the pilasters, after the Roman manner.

The simplicity of the design is dignified by its extent and by the massiveness of the construction, while the effect of the severe restraint and fine proportioning is more Grecian than that of the definitely Greek details-the Greek corridor, for example, beneath the Roman dome of the central unit. It lacks of the Greek spirit only that purity of line which is a matter of masonic craftsmanship, and that has never been attained, so far as I know, this side of the Middle Ages.

A Greek architect, moreover, would have used the great frieze for joyous color and sculptural adornment. Indeed, the sculptural opportunities of the design are boundless.

A delightful touch of classic Greek effect results from the fact that the central unit is higher than the adjoining corridors, so that as one looks down the colonnade of its frontal portico the blue sky is seen at the top between the columns. That glimpse is purely Greek. On the interior of the dome the columns supporting the drum are fluted and have acanthus capitals, so designed as to achieve a beautifully classic effect.

This dome is to be used as the home

of the library. Such accomodation has been one of the Institute's most painful deficiencies, and its noble housing and central position in the new structure may play no small part in the development of that spiritual "Tech" of which we have had so much to say.

The corridors surround a great court, with bays, or smaller quadrangular courts, with variations of level, the whole space inviting adornment, both of gardening and construction.

The entire building and its beautiful site on the banks of the Charles River bid fair to become one of the most satisfying of American college buildings.

The architect of this great work is William Welles Bosworth of New York, affiliated with the class of 1889, M. I. T. Few architects have so prolonged their period of preparatory studies. London, Paris, Holland, Spain and Rome have known him as a student. As I have said, the design of the new Tech seems like a memory of Rome.

The sound judgment and restraint displayed in the design is even more remarkable than the details of architectural proportion and ornament.

Mr. Bosworth was materially assisted in his work by Professor James Knox Taylor, head of the architectural department of the Institute. Important engineering work in preparation for the foundations was done by Professor William C. Crosby, while a very elaborate investigation of other educational plants was conducted by John R. Freeman of Providence. These capable engineers, alumni of the Institute, gave freely their invaluable services.

The actual work of construction has been in charge of the Stone & Webster corporation, the heads of which important firm are also graduates of Tech, of the class of '85.

The history of this firm is one of engrossing interest. Meeting by chance on the streets of Boston shortly after their graduation, the two classmates drifted into a discussion of the possibilities, from a commercial standpoint, of the then little developed calling of consulting engineer. They finally de