An Antiquarian Visits Tufts

Requirements for admission are clearly spelled out. Each applicant must produce certificates of good moral character and take an admission examination, that makes today’s SATs sound like a piece of cake, to demonstrate proficiency in Latin, Greek, mathematics and geography & history.

Then there is the list of courses to be taken by freshmen in their first semester:

Latin. Livy; Ramsey’s Roman Antiquities; Latin Prose Composition.
Greek. Homer’s Odyssey; Xenophon; Isocrates; Greek Prose
Composition; Goodwin’s Greek Moods and Tenses.
Mathematics. Peirce’s Geometry.
Rhetoric. Bain’s; Themese; Declamations.
Roman History.
Lectures on the Geography and Topography of Ancient Greece.

Of course the courses get tougher as one moves through the curriculum. It just starts off easy. I now begin to see the significance of “The Origin and History of the Doctrine of Endless Punishment.” Is this also the origin of “no pain, no gain?”

Higher education wasn’t free. Students who shared accommodations could expect to pay $221.50 a year. Adjusted for inflation this had become $3,197.43, the cost of four weeks of Tufts education today. Of course the costs have increased but so too have both school and student expectations. College, once a privilege, has become a requirement for virtually all significant work.

A tour of campus, the introductory session conducted by Claire Dennison of Admissions, a review of the literature and an online comparison of all the various metrics by which colleges and universities are compared, delivers the clear message, that while the name – Tufts – is the same not much else is.

Women today comprise more than half the Tufts enrollment and barriers to many of the once mostly male career paths are here unaccepted if not unrecognized. Tufts is strong in the sciences and converts many undergraduate women to the pursuit of science degrees, a formidable accomplishment in an America where home economics was not long ago a common course path. For a father visiting with a daughter, its encouraging to see the playing field leveled for women who will stake their claims to what we might have until recently called the American dream but which we should more accurately call the world dream. For those who have made it this far Tufts for the next school year, will cost $40,000 for tuition, fees, room & board with about half the enrolling students receiving some financial aid and needing it.

So what would the trustees of 1872-3 have to say if they could come back to visit Tufts today? They might note on the Tufts website that the lead article “Featured Tufts Authors” celebrates the release of 48 books written by faculty and graduate students. It seems that some things never change.

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An Antiquarian Visits Tufts

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An Antiquarian Visits Tufts

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