"Ever since I have known something of the knowledge-seeking spirit, and the intellectual capabilities of the community in and around Boston, I have felt persuaded that of all places in the world it was the one most certain to derive the highest benefits from a Polytechnic Institution. The occupations and interests of the great mass of the people are immediately connected with the applications of physical science, and their quick intelligence has already impressed them with just ideas of the value of scientific teaching in their daily pursuits. Besides this, the high prevailing taste, diffused from the upper to the inferior classes of society, inspires an earnest appetite for richer intellectual food than they can now readily obtain."