William Barton Rogers

William Barton Rogers was an American geologist, physicist and educator, born in Philadelphia in 1804 and died in 1882, who is remembered as the founder and first president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Educated at the College of William and Mary, he taught natural philosophy and chemistry before turning his attention to founding a new kind of institution devoted to the useful arts, believing that a university built around applied science was essential to an era of industrial progress. He secured legislative funding for the school in 1861, and when MIT opened its doors in 1865 he served as both its founding president and its instructor of physics, shaping a curriculum built around hands on, practical scientific study rather than purely classical instruction. Ill health forced him from the presidency in 1868, but he returned to lead the institute again from 1878 until his death in 1882, which came as he was delivering an address at MIT's commencement.