Ch. 183
COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS
In the year One Thousand Eight Hundred and Sixty-one.
AN ACT to incorporate the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and to Grant aid to said Institute and to the Boston Society of Natural History.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows: Section 1. William B. Rogers, James M. Burke, E.S. Tobey, [S.H. Gookin], E.B. Bigelow, M.[D.]. Ross, [J.D.] [Philbrick], F.H. Storer, J.D. Runkle, C.[H.] Dalton , [J.]B. Francis, [I.][C.] [Hoadley], M.[P.] Wilder, [C.L.] Flint , Thomas Rice, John Chase, J.[P.] Robinson, F.W. Lincoln[, Jr.], Thomas [Aspinwall], [J.][A.] Dupee, E.C. Cabot, their associates and successors, are hereby made a body corporate, by the name of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; for the purpose of instituting and maintaining a society of arts, a museum of arts, and a school of industrial science, and aiding generally, by suitable means, the advancement, development and practical application of science in connection with arts, agriculture, manufactures and [commerce] with all the powers and privileges, and subject to all the duties, restrictions and liabilities [set] forth in the sixty-eighth chapter of the General Statutes. Section 2. Said corporation for the purposes [aforesaid], shall have authority to hold real and personal estate to an amount not succeeding two hundred thousand dollars. Section 3. One certain square of State land on the Back Bay, namely, the second square [westwardly] from the Public Garden, between Newbury and Boylston streets, according to the plan reported by the Commissioners on the Back Bay, February twenty-one, eighteen hundred and fifty seven shall be reserved from sale forever, and kept as an open space, or for the use of such educational institutions of science and art as are [hereafter] provided for. Section 4. If at any time within one year after the passage of this act, the said Institute of Technology shall furnish satisfactory evidence to the Governor and Council that it is duly organized under the aforesaid [charter] and has funds [?], or otherwise guaranteed for the prosecution of its objects, to an amount at least of one hundred thousand dollars, it shall be entitled to a perpetual right to hold, occupy and control, for the purposes herein before mentioned the westerly portion of said second square, to the extent of two-third parts thereof, free of rent or charge by the Commonwealth subject, nevertheless, to the following stipulations, namely: Persons from all parts of the Commonwealth shall be alike eligible as members of said institute, or as pupils for its instruction; and its museum or conservatory of arts, at all reasonable times, and under reasonable regulations, shall be open to the public; and within[?] years from the time when said land is placed at its disposal for occupation, filled and graded, said institute shall erect and complete a building suitable to its said… |