The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-05-09
HARVARD AND TECH

The Present an Appropriate Time for
 Discussing Possible Union.
 With 1,6OO students housed in Boston lodging houses, many Of them under conditions not at all desirable; it's edu- cational buildings scattered through the Back Bay, and reached only through crowded streets; each of the departments taxed to the utmost for room, the future of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has become a question of grave concern. It has al- ready been considered in all it's phases by those interested, and President Henry S. Pritchett has outlined plan for new and great institution, situat- ed some distance from Boston, where land is less valuable. and where there will be better opportunities for the cultivation of that student life in which he is interested, and which has not been possible under existing conditions.
 The institute long ago outgrew it's present location, and within a few years it has been necessary to hurry order to accommodate incoming class es. All such relief has been of a tenn porary character; new departments soon became overcrowded, and With the larger classes arose new difficulties in keeping the instruction up to the high standard of the institute.
 l Whether the institute will move from its present location in the Back Bay, where 1t has been since 1S66 and from which it graduated the first class of fourteen two years later, will probably depend upon the result of an action at law which will be tried some time dur ing the summer. This action has been brought by persons owning property in the neighborhood of the buildings bounded by Boylston, Berke- Hey, Newbury, and Clarendon Streets, the land for which was given to the in- stitute by the Legislature in 1865
 At that time this was on the outer edge of the Back Bay, on made land from the business centre of Boston, II lis now claimed that the grant was Iconditional, that only one-third of the Hand was to be occupied by buildings and that if the institute now wishes tt sell it must be with this stipulation This would detract very materially from what is now probably one of the lmost valuable blocks in Boston.
 With this restriction, 1t is doubtful whether a purchaser could be found very readily, for that part of Boylstor Street is no longer the residential sec. Ition it was a few years ago. Business has been gradually encroaching upor the territory, until it has almost hem. lined in the institute buildings. The owners of property on Newbury Street however, maintain that 1t is still resi- dential street, and that the erection o1 large office buildings, such as may b, expected if the institute property i, sold, will lessen the value of their hold Iings.
 This is the question that the courtl will decide, and until decision i1 lreached the future of the institute vii be problematical. Tn the mean tim Ianother element of uncertainty ha. been introduced by the likelihood O Harvard entering field that has beer lpeculiarly that of the Massachusett
 Institute of Technology.
 It is true that Harvard has the Law Irence Scientific School, but the latte has no such plant, nor has it the pres tige of the institute. With the aid O the millions of dollars left Harvard il the will of the late Gordon Mckay fo the promotion of technical education
 Harvard may become a very formida
 ble rival of the institute, and the ques Ition has arisen whether there is fielt flor two great institutions with i'm
 mense plants within stones throw o
 each other.
 New England has already begun t. feel the effect of the eoinpe Itition of western universities an, technical schools and prominen educators assert that 1t is only by rais ling the standard of educat ton, by mak ling the eastern colleges and school
 much better, the instruction more thor
 tained So it has come about that
 union of the Massachusetts Institute 0 Technology with Harvard is being con sidered; the making of one big technica school with plant that cannot h
 equalled anywhere in the world. an (which will draw it's students not onl