MIT's inability to secure a more stable financial footing during this era can largely be attributed to the existence of the Lawrence Scientific School at nearby Harvard. Given the choice between funding technological research at the oldest university in the nation or an independent and adolescent institution, potential benefactors were indifferent or even hostile to funding MIT's competing mission. Earlier overtures from founding MIT faculty member and now Harvard President Charles William Eliot towards consolidation of the two schools had been rejected or disrupted by Rogers in 1870 and 1878. Also, despite his previous tenure at the analogous Sheffield School, Walker now remained committed to MIT's independence from the larger institution.