The McKay Dilemma

The Supreme Court's decision that the terms of the Gordon McKay will and the intent of the donor are not satisfied by the terms of the existing agreement between Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology creates, for the future, a very serious problem. Indeed, the responsibility of discovering a way in which the money can be wisely used becomes a question requiring the most arduous thought of all those in direction of Harvard's policy.

What seems undeniable is that the immediate interests of the community, in fact of the whole country, would best have been served had the McKay endowment been discovered available for use in the way agreed upon by Harvard and by Technology. There would not be wisdom, it has thus far appeared, in building up side by side in Cambridge, two great schools of technical science and engineering, one on the Charles and one at Harvard square.

The Supreme Court, however, has had to take into account other interests than these. It has been obliged to look to the actual will and intent of the benefactor whose gift first brought into existence the other, the educational question. Upon such inspection, and in the interest of the integrity of all testaments, it has declared that the present educational agreement is not a satisfaction of the McKay will. Once more the obligation to decide on a wise educational use of the fund is thrown back upon Harvard. Boston Transcript.