President Lowell Spoke in Boston

The Boston City Club gave a dinner last evening in honor of the Presidents of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. President Lowell, in speaking of the relations of the University to the community, laid special stress on the importance of confining university extension to fields in which the existing resources of the university could be placed at the service of the community. It was much better, he said, to have substantial instruction of a high grade given by a few of the most eminent and stimulating teachers than to have superficial or merely entertaining courses of a popular nature. As illustrations of the better policy he cited the school for industrial foremen conducted jointly by the Lowell Institute and the Institute of Technology, and the collegiate courses now being given by the co-operation of the Lowell Institute and Harvard University.

President Maclaurin presented a most interesting paper on the function of the technological school in furnishing rapidly growing municipalities with the highly trained experts who are now sorely needed in the permanent positions. He prefaced his remarks by a cordial reference to the service of Harvard men in the administration of the Institute of Technology, and especially to that of President Lowell who, he hoped, would long retain his membership in the Institute's corporation. To this he added that, in those fields of work in which Harvard and the Institute seem to come in contact, it was the firm intention of the present administration to avoid unnecessary duplication of effort.