Tufts University - Jumbo Yearbook (Medford, MA)

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and earnest academic goals College Hill from Mystic River in the 1850 ' s showing ship on ways. “Gem of the Ocean,’’ built in Medford, Mass., 1852. More than 70 clipper ships were built in Medford during the early years of the College. i 24

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With a doctrine of liberalism Professor ' s Row in the early years. the-road religious liberals of the time, and especially to the members of the free but not radical Universalist Church, Harvard had already gone too far in its opposition to orthodoxy. Because of a reactionary spirit on the one hand and what seemed to be an extreme radicalism on the other in existing colleges, many liberal individuals were deeply dis¬ turbed. This was especially true of the members of the Universalist Church, which was the most rapidly growing denomination of the time. The 150,000 members of this church in New England had long felt that a different sort of college must be established. An earnest group of men and women in this denomination and in other related churches therefore decided to found a new and truly liberal college, one that would be fully non¬ sectarian but not anti-religious. Above all they dreamed of a college of high academic distinction in which toleration and real religi¬ ous freedom would be established from the first. Those who were interested in the found¬ ing of the new college were more agreed about its academic and religious characteristics than they were as to its location. It was variously proposed that the institution should be established at Canton, New York, Franklin, Massachusetts, and in other places. It was even suggested that the college should be established in Cambridge. Those who made this proposal had in mind the separate colleges of Oxford and Cambridge. They felt that a new college could be founded in association with Harvard that might be quite separate in discipline and doctrine but still enjoy certain of the advantages of a university association in the English sense. Of course this proposal did not prevail. Down through the years, however, Harvard, seeing in Tufts another institution devoted to the new re¬ ligious liberalism, has assisted the younger i 23

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... the Hill was illuminated. Early days of present Tufts College golf course. Alumni Day baseball games in the 1920’s. -25 }