Tufts: A Democracy on the Hilltop

When Tufts University was still a grassy hilltop almost 110 years ago, a group of Universalist ministers met in New York and decided that colleges in general were godless things which produced mainly bigots, atheists and scoffers. They said, of course, that Harvard was the one exception to this, but agreed that even Harvard was too close to a city of temptation to be really safe.

And so Tufts began. Although founded mainly by Universalist donations, this college was to have a true liberal tradition and its charter proclaimed that no instructor or student would ever be denied admission because of religious opinions.

It is evident today that Tufts has been no disappointment to its founders' ideals. This little college community, set on a 200-acre hilltop between Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts, has put into practice the very basic principles on which it was established in 1852.

From this original charter of a liberal tradition has evolved a college "with a spirit of democracy, small 'd'," in the words of its President, Nils Y. Wessell. Not only is religious prejudice absent from the Tufts campus today, but, in fact, almost every other type of discrimination--social or academic--is also minimized.

No 'Unaccepted' Students

Even at the greatest of liberal arts colleges it is not possible to find this pure form of collegiate democracy in such a complete state. At Yale, in fact, those slightly academically or socially unaccepted students receive names such as "weenies" or "turkeys;" at Harvard they are occasionally dubbed "wonks;" and even at Wellesley students are apt to meet "Peter Pans." Yet at Tufts students are able to treat classmates with the type of mutual respect which eliminates such groups of the "unaccepted."

Such a democratic system naturally produces more than mere friendly hellos to passers-by. With faculty as well as students working together in this atmosphere, Tufts has benefited throughout its history by programs and planning which not infrequently began in student government meetings.

To be sure, Tufts has its honor societies and its drama group--the Arena Theater--but these are no more than a representative part of the "Tufts Community." Among the undergraduates there is only one real power, and that is the students themselves, united in the Student Council. They are first to recognize the necessity of avoiding cliques, and even plan their social events for the college unit rather than for individual groups.

Perhaps the one last stronghold of the small individual group on the Tufts campus is its fraternities and sororities. These are only indirectly connected with the powerful Student Council and have their own governing inter-fraternity system. Yet it is almost a fact at Tufts that any student who shows an interest in a fraternity will be accepted by at least one. And it is for this reason that many of the fraternities have dropped their national affiliation which sometimes demands observance of a racial clause or some other discriminatory policy.

All of Tufts is aware that the fraternities, which compose about one-third of the resident students, do tend to attract small individual groups. But usually when this happens other students, both commuters and dormitory residents, will go on unaware of the clique until it disbands or gradually drifts back into the community.

But, of course, considering its relatively small size, group planning is the best method to keep the Tufts community constantly united. The college itself, the biggest unit of the university, has 2300 undergraduates including its sister institution, Jackson College. Of this number almost 800 students are daily commuters.

In the other parts of the University, which bring Tufts' total enrollment to 3200, there are several highly-rated graduate schools including the university's only two off-campus schools, the School of Medicine and the School of Dental Medicine, both in Boston.

Tufts Becomes a University

The one controversial school affiliated with Tufts is the internationally-famous Fletcher School of International Law and Diplomacy. When Tufts officially renamed itself a University last year (it had been Tufts College), it figured Fletcher was as much a part of the University as the undergraduate college. Fletcher, however, which has always considered itself governed by autonomous rule, refused to be incorporated and petitioned until the Tufts Administration gave in unofficially and took its name off the Fletcher stationery.

Like other improving universities, Tufts, too, has had its share of recent million-dollar structures. In 1939 the trustees appointed Leonard C. Carmichael, Chairman of the Psychology Department at the University of Rochester, as President. In his fifteen years before resigning to become director of the Smithsonian Institute, Carmichael executed plans for $4,500,000 worth of buildings for Tufts.

His successor, Nils Wessell, was a former student of Carmichael's and was brought to Tufts as dean of the college when the Psychology Chairman became President in 1939. Indeed it was through Carmichael, a Tufts graduate in 1921, that Wessell first heard of the Medford College. Actually Wessell was studying for his Ph.D. in psychology at Rochester with the intention of going into Industrial Personnel work.

In his three years as President thus far Wessell has made good use of this efficency training and last year hired a comptroller to put the University on a definite budget system for the first time in its history. Also in Wessell's administration the College has acquired a new $660,000 Arts Center from a Boston lawyer named Edward Cohen. Cohen, who studied at Boston College and the University of California, received an honorary degree at Tufts' centennial exercises in 1952. A feature in the Center is a large mural in egg tempera including all of Tufts' dignitaries from its first president, Hosea Ballou II, to Wessell.

In the history which is recorded on this mural, Tufts has grown in value from $100,000, the amount raised to found the college, to its present finaincial value of $36,000,000, of which half is in endowment. Most Tufts men are familiar with the story of how its original funds were raised. At a Universalist convention in New York the Reverend Ballou preached the sermon to open the convention on the forty-eighth verse of the twelfth chapter of Luke: "Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required; and to whom men have committed much, of them will they ask the more."

Dean Turned Down

Two offers were first made for a site for this new college: one was a wind-swept hill on the Somerville farm of Charles Tufts, the other on the Franklin, Mass. farm of Oliver Dean. When Dean's offer was turned down, he established Dean Academy instead, intended as a preparatory school for Tufts College.

Another outstanding first contributor to the new college was the famed circus owner, P.T. Barnum. In 1882 Barnum gave Tufts a museum and from time to time provided it with animal skins to be stuffed for exhibit. Then in 1885 Barnum's most colossal specimen and the world's largest elephant in captivity, Jumbo, was tragically killed by a railroad train. As usual, Barnum promised the elephant's hide to Tufts. But first he took it on a tour of Europe, where twice as many people paid to see Jumbo stuffed (as compared to his earnings when he was alive).

Of course, getting Jumbo onto the Tufts campus and into the Barnum Museum caused no little stir. The building's stone steps had to be removed and its floor lowered three times before Jumbo gained his final resting place in 1890. By that time the huge elephant had officially become the Tufts' mascot and the college was nicknamed the "Jumbos."

Classtime is probably the most friendly period of the Jumbos' day. It is rare to find a professor who does not call each of his students by his or her first name after the first month of classes. And the students themselves, for instance, never walk from class to class by themselves or even in pairs.

Tufts' course system may soon undergo a partial face-lifting as a result of a recent Carnegie Foundation study grant of $35,000. At present the school offers a wide variety of liberal arts courses along with its special undergraduate College of Engineering.

Tufts plans for the future are still very modest. It has no desire to become a large expanding university, but only to enhance its reputation of being the good little university on the hill. And it appears that as long as democracy prospers and increases, this small hilltop democracy is sure to continue its successful ways.Carmichael Hall, the new men's dormitory at Tufts named in honor of the College's recent president.