From the words of William Barton Rogers
William Barton Rogers had something special in mind when he founded the Massachusetts Institute of Technology exactly one hundred and fifty years ago.
Here is a copy of the final paragraph of the proposal that captured the overall educational mission of his then new polytechnic institute.
It will be apparent that the education which we seek to provide, although eminently practical in its aims, has no affinity with that instruction in mere empirical routine which has sometimes been vaunted as the proper education for the industrial classes. We believe, on the contrary, that the most truly practical education, even in an industrial point of view, is one founded on a thorough knowledge of scientific laws and principles, and one which unites with habits of close observation and exact reasoning, a large general cultivation. We believe that the highest grade of scientific culture would not be too high as a preparation for the labors of the mechanic and manufacturer; and we read in the history of social progress ample proofs that the abstract studies and researches of the philosopher are often the most beneficent sources of practical discovery and improvement.
But such complete and comprehensive training can, in the nature of things, be accessible to only comparatively few; while the limited and special education which our plan proposes, would, we hope, fall within the reach of a large number whom the scantiness of time, means, and opportunity, would exclude, from the great seats of classical and scientific education in the Commonwealth.
I'd like to think of the last sentence as reference to Harvard College, the only prominent classical institution of higher learning in the Commonwealth at that time.
William Barton Rogers was the first president of MIT and was also president of the National Academy of Sciences. He served as professor at the College of William and Mary and the University of Virginia, where he vigorously defended the University's refusal to award honoris causa degrees to the Virginia State Legislature. To date, MIT follows the same guiding principle.