One aspect of this program should be to address the age-old question of what you wish to accomplish by the educational program, but now in the context of society and technology of today. Also, to recognize that MIT's objectives will be different from other schools whose student body may not be as gifted. Fundamentally, the objectives should be based on the desire to stimulate the ability to think in abstract terms, to communicate by voice and written word, and to have the tools necessary to enter the workplace. The last objective is more important for the so-called "career" programs like engineering and is less important for the very quick students at MIT than at other schools. I base the last comment on my experience of teaching Flight Vehicle Design at Boston University whose students were capable, but not equivalent to the MIT student. One must also be very careful about "hands-on" programs, which can waste a lot of time on fixing non-functioning equipment or on acquiring the needed hardware for a project. Another practical question is how to arrest the skyrocketing cost of college programs, 60 to 75 times the cost in 1942, over which time the CPI has risen by a factor of 20.