<p>
[quote]
Actually, you have it backwards
[/quote]
</p>
<p>What exactly do I have backwards? </p>
<p>
[quote]
This was the impetus for schools like MIT that started up at the end of the 1800's. It's probably not a coincidence this happened right after the Industrial Revolution.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, actually, the American Industrial Revolution is generally credited to have really boomed started after the Civil War, as part of the world's "second Industrial Revolution" (the first happening in the UK about 75 years earlier). This second revolution occurred during the period of Reconstruction to WW1. When was MIT founded? 1861 - the year the Civil War began. Hence, it seems to me that your chronology should be the other way around. MIT was not founded as a response to the US involvement in the Industrial Revolution. Rather, it was actually founded slightly before that, and arguably * contributed * to the development of that revolution.</p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Industrial_Revolution%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Industrial_Revolution</a></p>
<p>
[quote]
Part of Harvard's push to reinvent itself was the unsuccessful attempt to purchase MIT in the early 1900's. The MIT alumni voted against it.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Actually, this story is actually more complicated than that. There were actually several attempts to merge Harvard and MIT. While It is true that the MIT alumni voted against it, that didn't really stop the contemporary efforts and certainly wouldn't have stopped later efforts by the administrations of both schools. What * really * put the kibosh on these efforts was a court ruling barring such a merger. </p>
<p>*The proposed merger nearly became a reality. A majority of trustees from both institutions approved the scheme, but it was financially contingent upon MIT’s ability to sell its property in Boston’s Back Bay to raise funds for rebuilding on Harvard’s land at Soldiers Field. In September 1905 the intended merger failed because the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court determined that MIT could not sell its Back Bay lands without violating the terms under which it had originally acquired them. *</p>
<p><a href="http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/exhibits/harvard-mit/index.html%5B/url%5D">http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/exhibits/harvard-mit/index.html</a></p>
<p>
[quote]
MIT was already well-respected in the early 1900's, but you're correct that it really made its name in World War II with the development of radar. In order for MIT to successfully do this, however, they needed to have a stellar faculty already in place. This could not have happened overnight. Also, just off the top of my head, they attracted some awesome people before the 40's. Vannevar Bush was an MIT alumnus and was one of the giants of electrical engineering--he was there from the 20's until he retired. The application of mathematical logic to electrical circuits was someone's master's thesis at MIT--obviously a gigantic contribution. In the late 30's, they had both Feynman (one of the top few physicists of the 20th century) and Robert Burns Woodward as undergrads. For those that aren't familiar, Robert Burns Woodward is probably the most talented synthetic chemist in the 20th century, winning the Nobel Prize. The Woodward-Hoffman Rules, a very fundamental tenet you learn in organic chem today, also won the Nobel Prize for Hoffman shortly after Woodward died. So he narrowly missed winning the Nobel a second time.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, actually, what I am making a twofold point.</p>
<h1>1) Engineering was not a highly respected industry in the US until about WW2 (when technological development was seen to be key to the war effort). Prior to that time, "respectable" American society looked down on engineering, as they basically saw it as glorified handiwork. Heck, even to this day, engineering is still seen as something not quite on par, either financially or socially with, say, law or medicine or finance.</h1>
<h1>2) Before WW2, MIT was nowhere near the major research center that it is today for the simple reason that no US university was. Let's face it. The US as a whole did not become a significant science/technology world power until WW2 - prior to that, the vast majority of Nobel Prizes were won by Europeans, and the vast majority of scientific and technical advances were invented by Europeans. I think I read somewhere that before WW2, as far as the number of science Nobels (hence, not counting Peace or Literature Prizes), the US couldn't match up to even the Netherlands. It was WW2 where US universities, MIT being among the forefront, really stepped onto the world stage. Before that time, MIT and all other US universities (including Harvard) were mere minnows compared to the great European universities such as Oxbridge, and (especially) the constellation of powerful German universities. In fact, the whole model of what a 'research university' is, is based on German universities.</h1>
<p>WW2 basically destroyed Europe's scientific preeminence, and actually contributed to the rise of the US, not only because of the impetus the US government placed on research to help with the war effort, but because many of the top European scientists, including especially Jewish scientists, fled to the US. Europe's loss was the US's gain. If totalitarianism and the war had never happened, I strongly suspect that MIT (and all other US universities) would still be research minnows relative to the Euro-giants, and that the best American students would prefer to study in European schools (which is the mirror image of today, when many of the best European students prefer to study in the US).</p>