ABSTRACT
This chapter examines one understudied aspect of the founding of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT): its initial reception. Through an analysis of three addresses on the establishment of MIT and the responses they elicited, it seeks to develop a fuller understanding of the Institute's origins as nested within a broader culture conflict in mid-nineteenth-century America. The chapter seeks to address part of the scholarly gap by examining the initial reception of MIT within a broader culture war in mid-nineteenth-century America. The initial reception of MIT was shrouded in debate and controversy, eliciting strong responses from classicists and scientists alike. While historians of American higher education have recognized mid-nineteenth-century debates between these two factions, the historiography has tended to overlook MIT's place in the culture conflict as well as the conflict that existed within the scientific community.
