ABSTRACT
MIT decided to increase its links to industry to make up for the ending of state funding by putting its relationship to industry on a business footing, exchanging services for funds. A policy of direct cooperation with industry arose out of MIT’s financial needs and the feeling that the war had demonstrated the value of applying science to industrial processes. Yet “while the gap between educational institutions and the industrial interests of the country cannot be said to have been completely bridged in all instances, it was materially narrowed.”1 Thrown into financial crisis, the Institute faced a choice between accepting an offer of a merger with Harvard, becoming that university’s engineering school, or finding an alternative source of support.
