THE DEAN The Technology Review Published at Cambridge 89. Boston, Mass. ROBERT E. ROGEB3, Editor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mas. VOL. XXIII JULY, 1921 No.3 HAIL AND FAREWELL THISissue of the REVIEWdescribesthe inauguration of Dr. Ernest Fox Nichols as President of the Institute and gives his first messages to the alumni and friends of Technology. It is an occasion of the highest importance to a great institution, beginningas it does, under the happiest auspices, a ministry of the fairest possible opportunity for service, one which we all expect will be important and which we all hope will be long. This issue also announces the immediate retirement of Alfred E. Burton after forty years as teacher and nearly twenty years as Dean of students at Technology. Nothing we can say can add one jot to what everybody has been saying for the past two months about the Dean, nor can it begin to express adequately the value of his life to the Institute. For the future we have every hope and expectation. But the past we possess! We know what has been done and we recognize its unique and memorable importance. Satisfaction in our achievements and our possessions, even at these great moments, mingles inevitably in our minds with memories of losses. We have a magnificent school, a superb equipment, a gen- erous endowment. We have Dr. Nichols. We have lost Maclaurin and Sedgwick. We are losing Burton. In the rising city their memorials are set high for all generations to see and reverence - monumentum aere perenniue. This issue of the TECHNOLOGYREVIEWis dedicated, gratefully, lovingly, justly, to Alfred Edgar Burton, Dean. 305 THE INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS A great and dignified function, befitting the Institute and the event AFTERan interregnum of nearly a year and a half since the death of President Richard C. Maclaurin, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has once more placed academic and administrative control in the hands of a leader, with the inauguration as president of Ernest Fox Nichols, Bc.D., LL.D., formerly president of Dartmouth College, in Walker Memorial on the morning of Wednesday, June 8. The gathering could not have been called colorful, for Technology ideals do not tend toward display, but if the scene was not brilliant, it was a gathering ofbrilliant men that had cometo witness it. Presidents of nearly a score of colleges, country-wide in scope, and representatives of more than as many more; the Governor of the Commonwealth, military and naval dignitaries, the chief executives of Cambridge and Boston, and prominent scientists made up an impressive list of delegates. For such an academic meeting, the absence of the academic cap and gown was noticeable. There were a few seen - the speakers and members ofvisiting delegations wore academic dress - but for the most part the semblance of color and formality present was contributed by the uniforms of the military and naval delegates. Befitting the recognized position of Technology in the scientific world, the equipment included the last word in the arts of telephony and lighting. High in the hall, far over the heads of the speakers as they delivered their addresses, hung a hood, which caught the sound waves and amplified them manifold for the benefit of the sixteen hundred who packed the hall to capacity, and even for those who, unable to gain admittance to the building, crowded the steps and sidewalk before the Memorial. From the balcony over the steps three megaphones were hung, which transmitted the words of the speakers as plainly as if the audience were seated before the platform. Hundreds who would otherwise have been unable to take part in the exercises were thus enabled to hear the statement of the policies of the man who will shape the destinies for years to come of one of the greatest scientific schools in the world. The order of exercises was as follows: INVOCATION,REVERENDGEORGEA.GORDON. INDUCTIONOFTHEPRESIDENT,ELIHUTHOMSON,ActingPresident of the Institute. ADDRESS,HISEXCELLENCYCHAN?\TINGH.COX, Governor of the Commonwealth. AnDRESS,A.LAWRENCELOWELL,Presidentof Harvard University. ADDRESS,HENRYP. TALBOT,Chairman of the Faculty. 306 The Inauguration of President Nichols 307 ODE: "THE INSTITUTE",byFrederick P. Fish of the Corporation. INAUGURALADDRESS,ERNESTFox NICHOLS. Singularly similar were the keynotes of the addresses of President Nichols and Prof. Henry P. Talbot, the latter head of the Administrative Committee which has been deciding Technology's policies during the interregnum. Each stressed the necessity for research in "pure" science, each condemned the tendency of the modern technical school toward a curriculum of advanced technical subjects at the expense of the humanities, each spoke of the possibilities of the Technology plan of industrial co-operation. President Nichols went further, and discussed the relation of the executive toward the employee, the scientific attitude on the strike question, and the training of the student to become the leader. From Dr. Nichols' inaugural address it seems apparent that the fears of those well-wishersof Technology who have professed to see in the modern scientific school a tendency toward the practical side of science, to the neglect of the abstract, or pure science, may well be forgotten. Until now, says President Nichols, the workers in applied science have been using as a foundation the discoveries of past genera- tions of scientists, who have established a fund of pure scientific information for their use. Now, however, that fund of abstract science is being depleted with much use, and the applied scientists are facing a drouth of working material. For this he seesonly two solutions, either the hand-to-mouth existence of improving this year on last year's processes, or of training men to replenish the rapidly dwindling hoard of abstract scientific information. It seems probable that under Dr. Nichols the policy of Technology will be to do a proper share in this training of abstract research workers. The exercises opened with the invocation, offered by Rev. Dr. George A. Gordon, pastor of the Old South Church, who officiated in the same capacity at the dedication of Technology's new home on the Charles, in 1916. The next speaker, Dr. Elihu Thomson, himself a pioneer in the scientificfield, relinquished the nominal control which he had exercised in his capacity as acting president, and, in the name of the Corporation, inaugurated Dr. Nichols as president of Technology. Turning to Dr. Nichols, Dr. Thomson, said: "Dr. Nichols, representing the Institute and its governing board as acting prseident, I hereby invest you with the duties and the respon- sibilities of this high office in the full assurance that our confidence is rightly placed, and we pledge you our fullest sympathy and support whenever it may be needed. We know that the best standards and highest aims of our Institute are safe in your hands. We feel assured that the administration of its affairs will be conducted by you upon the high plane and in the spirit which has always characterized your actions, such that the Institute, its alumni and the world-wide friends of the school will have cause for congratulation in your unselfish devotion to its best interests." 308 The Technology Review Governor Cox, who while at Dartmouth learned, as he says, "all the physics I know," under the tutelage of Dr. Nichols as professor of physics, made the next address as representative of the Commonwealth. He was followedby President A. Lawrence Lowell of Harvard Univer- sity, who briefly reviewedthe career of the Institute and predicted even greater triumphs under the guidance of Dr. Nichols as president. Prof. Henry P. Talbot, chairman of the Faculty and head of the Administrative Committee since the death of Dr. Maclaurin, turned over to Dr. Nicholsthe actual management ofInstitute affairs,reviewing the work of the Faculty Committee and briefly touching on the plans which had been made for the future. Professor Talbot, who has just been elected acting dean of Technology, proffered to Dr. Nichols the co-operation of the Faculty. While the audience stood the "Ode to the Institute," bv Frederick P. Fish, was sung, after which President Nichols delivered his inaugural address. The President was accorded a stirring ovation as he rose, which lasted for some moments before it died away sufficientlyfor the new president to deliver his speech. The audience was profoundly attentive to the utterance of the convictions that will shape the future Technology policies,and at the close of his speechDr. Nichols was again cheered to·the echo. Following President Nichols' address, the academic parade, the first that Technology has had in the new buildings, was formed, and as the undergraduate body lined up to form a double line from Walker Memorial to the president's office in the educational buildings the procession came down the steps of Walker Memorial and filed between the rows of undergraduates along Charles River Road and through the Great Court - now named Eastman Court. As the processionpassed undergraduates fell in behind and, massing ., in the court, cheered and cheered again for Technology and its new president. Seated on the platform at the exerciseswere Leonard Metcalf, '9£, president of the Alumni Association; Francis R. Hart, treasurer of the Technology Corporation; President A. Lawrence Lowell of Harvard; Channing H. Cox Governor; Dr. Elihu Thomson, acting president; President Nichols; Rev. Dr. GeorgeA. Gordon; Prof. Henry P. Talbot; Dr. James P. Munroe, secretary of the Corporation; Dean Alfred E. Burton; Dr. A. D. Little, president-elect of the Alumni Association; E. S.Webster and C. A. Stone of the Corporation; Col. J. C. Christian, professor of military science and tactics; Adjt.-Gen. Stevens; Governor Cox's military aid, Capt. John S. Barrows; Dr. A. A.