Gray was a leading opponent of the Scientific Lazzaroni, a group of mostly physical scientists who wanted American academia to mimic the autocratic academic structures of European universities. A large percentage of the original 50 members of the National Academy of Sciences were Lazzaroni members. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences was opposed to the National Academy and collectively elected Gray and his friend, colleague, and fellow Charles Darwin supporter William Barton Rogers to the National Academy. Rogers founded the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This is one of the areas where Gray and his friend and colleague, Louis Agassiz, were in disagreement; Agassiz was a member of the Lazzaroni group. Agassiz had come to lecture at the Lowell Institute in 1846 and got hired by Harvard in 1847. Gray befriended him the way he had been befriended during his trip to Europe.