The Technologists Read Online Free

oar’s venomous jeer. When he should have been entering a stage of intense concentration on his studies as graduation crept closer (
If you’re to be graduated
), he instead felt unmoored and a little wild—and for that he blamed the obnoxious Harvard men he’d likely never see again.
    Only a handful of students gathered for the demonstration besides Marcus and Bob. This close to the end of term, most of the students raced home after five o’clock each evening to prepare for examinations and final papers. Marcus noticed Chauncy Hammond, Jr., gazing up at the cloudy sky. Hammie’s jet-black hair was parted smartly, impervious to the breeze, but his bulbous forehead and gourdlike chin, inexpertly shaved, overshadowed his otherwise bland facial features, which seemed to have been left unfinished by their creator. A contender, along with good-hearted Edwin Hoyt, for First Scholar, Hammie generally floated along in his own rarefied world of figures and formulas. Standing near the front steps was that busybody Albert Hall, writing in a ledger held in the crook of his arm, maybe recording the names of students present (or, more likely, listing those not present, underlined by his pencil withspite), and next to Albert was Bryant Tilden, arms crossed petulantly across his tree-trunk chest.
    Ellen Swallow was on her own at the outer fringe of the gathering. As the only female pupil at the Institute, Miss Swallow was taught separately from the others, so a sighting of her was rare. Her quick eyes darted around and caught his. He lifted his hand to his hat, but she simply looked the other way with a crimson bloom tainting her pale cheeks.
    President Rogers was slowly approaching the podium at the front of the building. He was steadied on one arm by Darwin Fogg, the Institute janitor, and on the other by a petite chambermaid. She held on to her employer gingerly but with an unmistakable protectiveness. Marcus looked upon the condition of their college president sadly, remembering him in days of much better health.
    Along the way, Rogers removed his eyeglasses from his vest and lost his grip on them; they bounced off his arm and, with one hand, the chambermaid caught them before they could hit the ground and returned them without waiting for any credit.
    “Is she dark or blond under that cap?” Bob, sneaking up behind him, asked in a whisper.
    “Who do you mean?”
    “The pretty little nymph you’re staring at as if her eyes were fully charged electromagnets—the Irish servant girl propping up Rogers. Never mind her. Have I told you this summer there will be dozens of balls thrown by good Boston society where you will make a fine prospect as a college graduate? Those ladies are so well bred they would rather be dead than not make an appearance at a public affair. Do not smooth your mustache like that—I cannot tell what expression you’re wearing. Do you laugh or sneer at my plans?”
    “Rogers is about to begin the demonstration. Do you have the circuit ready?”
    “Sneer! No, wait. You do laugh!”
    “Never at you, Bob.”
    “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome,” President Rogers began when the clock reached eight. Despite his weakened condition, his voice easily cascaded through the gathering with authoritative calm. “The people of Massachusetts have always been a mechanical people and our agewill see many wonders. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it is our sincerest hope that our zeal for new invention is as infectious outside the college as inside our walls, where we endeavor to invigorate the observing and logical faculties of young minds, by asking each day: What limit of knowledge will man yet reach?” He stopped, put his paper down on the podium, and looked at the sky as he wiped his eyeglasses. “It
is
growing dark, isn’t it? I’m embarrassed, I confess. I can hardly read my own jottings.”
    He nodded in their direction—that rugged face with the soft smile. Bob tapped a spring on a box. After