At Commencement last June it was announced that Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan was ready to give the money to build more than half of the proposed new Medical School,--as much as is needed for immediate work. The gift has caused no change in the plans for the new buildings, but has brought their realization into the near future. Nothing definite has been done in the matter during the summer, except the perfecting of the plans by the architects.

The following is an extract from the speech of President Eliot at the Commencement Dinner, which thoroughly explains Mr. Morgan's generous gift:

"Two years ago, I think it was, Messrs. Henry and Frank Higginson conceived an admirable method of securing a large tract of land just outside on the thickly built districts of Boston, about twenty acres in area, for the purpose of putting there a group of medical buildings at some day in the future.

"It looked very much in the future, but twenty gentlemen united to buy at an expense of about $550,000 this tract of land on the condition that Harvard University should have, of course, any portion of it which it desired. I think that a most ingenious and admirable way of helping an institution of learning.

"Thereupon the Medical Faculty caused to be prepared by skilful architects a drawing of the buildings they really wanted and could use in biological research and the teaching of medicine. This group of buildings was large. There were five buildings, outside the powerhouse; five large buildings. the enthusiastic committee representing the faculty, the leaders of whom were Dr. Henry P. Bowditch and Dr. J. Collins Warren, proceeded to get estimates on all these buildings, and for the grading of the ground in order to place them rightly.

"Again it looked as if it were in the remote future that this expectation could be indulged. Two million dollars seemed to be the cost of this group of buildings, with the grading and other provisions for their use.

"Last Friday Dr. Warren received the following telegram: 'Referring to our conversation and plans submitted (with the plans went completed estimates), I am prepared to erect the center pavilion and two buildings for the new Medical School of Harvard University, said buildings to be known and designated as memorial halls, in memory of Junius Spencer Morgan, a native of Massachusetts, formerly a merchant of Boston, and at the time of his death a merchant of London, England. You can announce this.--John Pierpont Morgan.'

"The first line of this despatch, gentlemen, conveys a great deal.--'Referring to our conversation and the plans submitted.' The plans submitted involve an expense of more than a million dollars."