Tufts University - Jumbo Yearbook (Medford, MA)

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Generous initiating donors education in France. Besides his generous gift to Tufts he also left bequests to Amherst and to other institutions. In the fine portrait of Dr. Walker at Tufts he holds in his hand a copy of Sir Thomas Browne ' s Religio Medici, a book which many years later was also a favorite of Sir William Osier. Other early donors to Tufts College were Richard Frothingham and his daughter Mary, later Mrs. Thomas A. Goddard. Mrs. God¬ dard ' s husband was one of the merchants and ship owners who made New England’s com¬ merce known all over the world. Mrs. Goddard gave Tufts its chapel and its first gymnasium to provide, as she said, for the spiritual and physical needs of the students. This first Tufts gymnasium, since its re¬ modelling, is now Goddard Hall of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. The Honorable Charles Robinson, Jr., Civil War mayor of Charlestown, was a benefactor and president of the Board of Trustees of the new college. His son, Sumner Robinson, ' 88, a Boston lawyer and also for many years a trustee of Tufts, contributed by his wisdom and his philanthropy in many ways to the college. Robinson Hall and large endowment funds have been gifts to Tufts from this family. Silvanus Packard of Boston by a bequest established in 1858 left a fund which now exceeds $280,000. On July 23, 1853, the cornerstone of the first building, now called Ballou Hall, was laid with appropriate exercises. Over 1500 persons were p resent. This original “college edifice” still stands, although much altered Roy all House, colonial mansion. 1 29

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this scene our reality . Ballou Hall and Chapel in the background i 28 }

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with the aim of knowledge internally. It is now the administration building of the college. In architecture it is a simple Italian Renaissance structure. As originally planned it contained a chapel, a library, recitation rooms, a dormitory, bathing accommodations, and, interestingly enough, rooms for two literary organizations. The societies which used these rooms were called the Mathetican and the Walnut Hill Fraternity. Other intercollegiate societies soon followed. In 1855 and in 1856 two national fraternities were founded at Tufts. At later periods other national fraternities have established chapters here. Before the present beautiful fraternity houses were erected on the campus, meeting rooms were rented in Usher ' s Block in Medford Square. Here the gown sometimes mystified the town by dark-hooded ritual performances. Before the building of Ballou Hall was complete, the Reverend William A. Drew, editor of a prominent religious magazine of the day, sat beneath a window in the un¬ finished chapel and inscribed a quotation in Latin from Horace and added these words: “Sacred to a progressive literature and to an enlightened piety be this place!”—-a prayer that has been a worthy guide for the college through the years. In 1854 students entered Tufts. Regular freshman class work began in 1855. From this time on academic work has continued without interruption. The first president of Tufts College was Hosea Ballou II, a man of wide learning in the ancient and modern languages and in High hat mowing at Tufts. { 30 }