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The Spike Golden Jubilee Number May 1949

II

II

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Office of the President

October 21, 1947

Dear Professor Hunter,

It is indeed a privilege to send most cordial greetings and felicitations from the Massa-chusetts Institute of Technology to Victoria University College in recognition of the occasion of its semi-centennial. Your own institution and this Institute are bound together not merely by a common purpose in the education of young people for service of a distinctive character, but also in a more intimate personal way because of our joint appreciation of the great service and our cherished memories of Richard Cockburn Maclaurin, whose name is an honoured one in each institution.

During his relatively brief but extremely brilliant career as an educational leader, Dr Maclaurin first served your college in New Zealand ably and nobly by helping to establish its principles and its ideals of operation, and later on the other side of the globe he had a distinguished and extraordinary career as the President and one of the great builders of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr Maclaurin, ably assisted by his charming wife, brought to America a breadth of view and freshness of outlook that were notable and invigorating, reflecting the energy and hopefulness of your splendid land. His soundness of learning, his judgment, his capacity for friendship, and his ability to influence and to command the service of other great men of character in his new endeavours stamped him as a man of great personality, extraordinary vision, and high executive ability. In yielding him to us in America your institution performed an international service for which we shall ever be grateful. Under his presidency the Massachusetts Institute of Technology not only greatly increased its physical plant and its financial and spiritual resources, but also broadened its influence in the scientific world and the respect in which it was held in lands beyond the sea.

In the dark days of the first World War when perplexing problems arose as to how college students should be trained to render the best service to their country, Dr Maclaurin's patriotism, knowledge of world needs, and capacity for leadership were again exhibited in his work in the establishment of the Student Army Training Corps in American colleges.

It is therefore with a deep and affectionate regard that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology sends across the Pacific its greetings, its felicitations, and its best wishes that your College may have a long, happy, and ever expanding success in its service to human welfare, and in its many fields of educational endeavour.

In writing as one of the successors of Dr Maclaurin as the head of this great school for which he gave so much of his splendid energy and devotion, let me add my personal tribute to your great college, and my personal wish that it will enter upon its second half century with constantly growing success and increasing influence in education and human relationships.

Very sincerely yours,

(Signed) Karl T. Compton,

President.