Besides playing host to Winston Churchill and other visiting notables last week, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology attended to some personal business: it inaugurated a new president, James Rhyne Killian Jr.
At 44, Killian, an old M.I.T. man himself, was taking over one of the foremost technical institutions in the world. It consisted of a student body of 4,500, a faculty of 1,000, and a compact, impressive campus of Roman revival and modern buildings across the Charles River from Boston. M.I.T. had come a long way since its opening classes in 1865.
"A Memorable Day." One day in that year, Founder William Barton...