THE CRANE THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL was the only major division of Tufts ever to be closed by the trustees. The school, one of three established by the Universalist denomination in the nineteenth century to prepare students for the ministry, had been founded in 1869 as the result of a bequest by Silvanus Packard, a Universalist layman and early major benfactor of the institution. Like the Engineering School, it was basically an undergraduate professional school for most of its history. However, it had long-standing aspirations to be a graduate facility. Ironically, that goal was in the process of realization at the very time the school ceased operation in 1968, after a history of ninety-nine years on the campus.

Enrollment in the school had always been small, seldom exceeding fifty students, and the school had been a deficit operation for most of its history. Although the early generations of students tended evto be Protestant in their religious affiliations, and predominantly Universalist in their denominational allegiance, a policy of welcoming all faiths had made the school increasingly non-sectarian in its orientation, reflecting faithfully the liberal spirit in which Tufts itself had been founded.

Although never officially sponsored by any one agency of the Universalist Church, clergy of that faith had served as presidents of the institution until the resignation of Frederick W. Hamilton in 1912. The funds to construct both Miner and Paige Halls in 1891 had been furnished by Alonzo A. Miner, the second president of the college (1862-75), and the theological school had shared from the beginning the same board of trustees as well as much of the faculty and instruction in the liberal arts curriculum. All of the deans of the theological school were Universalist clergy throughout its history. The Crane School was in the midst of a period of major transition in several ways when Carmichael left the Tufts presidency at the end of 1952. That fall the executive committee of the trustees

The identity of the individual selected as the new Crane dean in September 1954 was revealed at Commencement that year by President Wessell. He was Benjamin Butler Hersey, a native of Salem, Massachusetts, and a graduate both of Tufts and of its theological school in 1935. While a special (part-time) student he had defrayed part of his expenses by working as a fireman on the Boston-to-Portland run of the Boston and Maine Railroad. By economic necessity the work for the combined degree had to be extended from six years to ten.

Hersey had had extensive experience as a parish minister, and his work was recognized by his alma mater in 1944, when he received an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree. His wife, Laura Ruth Smith Hersey, an alumna of Jackson College in 1926, was president of the Association of Universalist Women (AUW) in the year of her husband's choice as dean and as Professor of Ministerial Practice. He became the Woodbridge Professor of Applied Christianity in 1958. Hersey, like his wife, had held several offices in the denomination. With a record of solid if not spectacular accomplishments before his appointment to the deanship, he was destined to be the last to hold that position in the history of the school.

On the eve of Hersey's election to the deanship, Acting Dean Ashton made a study of the school and submitted it for the information of Acting President Wessell. Ashton reported that it was "not in a particularly healthy state." Of the 151 men who were enrolled between 1947 and 1952, 80 were non-graduates; of the 33 women who attended during the same period, 14 were non-graduates. The high proportion who never completed the program was accounted for by the fact that some registered with no intention of doing so.

The basic minima to which the Crane School aspired, besides exclusively graduate-level instruction, were adequate course offerings in at least four fields, with a total of no less than four full-time faculty, and an adequate library. When Ashton made his report in 1953, not one of the requirements had been met by Crane, although plans were under way with the tacit approval of the trustees to meet all of them. Income from endowment could not support even two full-time faculty. The alternative was to close out Crane as a degree-granting institution and substitute for it a department of religion which would serve as an undergraduate service agency, and would include the chaplain's office; or to embark on a program of "purposeful expansion" to fulfill Crane's potential. Following the latter course would take both determination and money. Of the six entering students in 1953-54, all but one were receiving financial aid, and this constant drain on resources had somehow to be reduced, if not eliminated.

The decision to make the transition to an exclusively graduate school and to create a separate undergraduate department of religion coincided with Hersey's arrival on campus in 1954. No first-year pre-theological undergraduates were admitted in the fall of 1954. The six-year combined AB-STB program was to be eliminated by 1960, and earlier if possible, provided undergraduates then registered in the program elected to take the seven year course leading to BD. There were twice as many graduates in the student body (fourteen) in 1954 as in the previous year, and eight of the entering students in

President Wessell told the trustees triumphantly in 1956 that, at long last, a "fundamental change" in the character of the Crane School had taken place. It would not only operate entirely on a graduate level and would in this way approach national standards in theological education, but could now concentrate its personnel and resources "within more carefully defined and more appropriate limits." For the first time that anyone could remember, not a single one of the twenty-five students enrolled in 1956 was simultaneously registered in the undergraduate College of Liberal Arts. Perhaps the awkward (and sometimes embarrassing) combined degree program was to be a thing of the past. Although the conversion to graduate status was being accomplished by 1956, Provost Mead called attention to other pressing needs. More generous financial support and accreditation were both essential to survival.

Three years after his appointment as dean, Hersey made a progress report to the Tufts president. The prospects were encouraging but far from bright. Prior to 1954, graduates of Crane had been awarded the STB after completion of a six-year course of combined undergraduate and graduate study. The transition to a graduate school had been largely completed by 1957, and the BD was being awarded for completion of three years of study beyond the undergraduate level. Six such students had been enrolled in 1954. The total number of full-time students had risen to twenty-two by 1957, and the number of course offerings had grown from twenty-one to twenty-eight. The library, which had received special attention, was being used more extensively than ever before.

One way of raising academic standards had been to require the writing of a thesis. This went into effect in 1943 but was discontinued in 1955. Comprehensive examinations were also introduced in the 1940s but were soon abandoned. They were to have been reinstated in 1967 but the imminent closing of the school put an end to that plan. There was also the disturbing fact that grades of "C" were acceptable for the BD; i.e., the degree could be earned with less than

This was considerably below the minimum standard in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, where a minimum grade of "B-" in all courses was required for all degrees except the Master of Education, which allowed a "C" to be balanced off with an "A."

Raising the school to accreditable standards had not yet been achieved. The goal of adding one new full-time faculty member each year until the minimum of four had been reached, had not yet been attained. Two such appointments had been made by 1956 but the unexpected resignation of one in the spring of 1957 had again reduced the number of full-time faculty to one, plus the dean, with five teaching part-time. Hersey thought that, under the circumstances, two full-time appointments in 1958 were necessary, and an additional one by 1959. It was essential that the school offer educational facilities at least equal to those of other theological schools.

Dean Hersey took pride in the fact that all of the eight new students admitted in 1957 possessed bachelor's degrees; none was from Tufts that year. Of the twenty-four students, Unitarians outnumbered Universalists three to one, and the great majority of the student body continued to come from New England. The dean continued the policies of his predecessors in admitting students from all denominations interested in liberal religion. Enrollment in the 1950s continued to remain fairly constant at between twenty and thirty. The basically non-denominational admissions policy encouraged by Hersey was fully supported by Wessell. It was reinforced by a glance at the makeup of the Crane student body in 1954-55; of the thirty-one students, eleven were Universalists, twelve were Unitarians, six were Congregational, and one each were Presbyterian and Episcopal.

The school embarked on an aggressive advertising campaign in 1956. In that year 5,000 brochures were distributed to churches and educational institutions, and in 1957 a separate school bulletin was published and widely disseminated. Additions to endowment came in merely as driblets in the 1950s in spite of the money-raising efforts growing out of the Second Century Fund campaign. Typical were the increase in the principal of the Frank Oliver Hall Memorial Scholarship Fund from $5,000 to $7,510 in 1955; and the receipt of $5,000 the same year from the estate of Edith M. Tourtellot. A scholarship was established in her name. A special committee of the Tufts Alumni Council was created in 1956 to solicit $1,650,000 for Crane School endowment to bolster lagging Second Century Fund contributions. The committee was headed by George J.W. Pennington, pastor of the White Memorial Church in Concord, New Hampshire, and a Crane alumnus (1947).

When the Universalist Church of America, in order to channel financial contributions into one centralized system, denied permission in 1957 to solicit funds from individual ministers and churches, the Crane School decided to conduct its own campaign. A total of 2,100 letters sent out to such organizations as the AUW and several state conventions brought encouraging results. Unitarian students were financed in part by grants from their denomination; fifteen such students were receiving scholarships in 1960.

The idea of providing cooking and dining facilities for theological school students which had come to nought in the 1930s during Skinner's deanship was revived some twenty years later. This time the venture succeeded. It all began during the academic year 1954-55 when six students rented a refrigerator and started to prepare one or two simple meals a day in the basement of Paige Hall. Dean Hersey gave his approval to a regularized and enlarged activity providing three meals a day, and in 1956 an alumni dining room fund was created, with a goal of $15,000 to be raised by selling 1,ooo shares at $15 each. More than $8,ooo had been raised by 1959 to equip the kitchen and dining hall which were opened that year. The deficit in covering the remaining construction costs was borne by the university.

A dining cooperative had been organized with university approval in 1955, with rules, regulations, and the rotation of responsibilities drawn up by those who subscribed to the plan. Many a student with limited resources benefited from it; at the same time the cooperative dining arrangement provided additional opportunities for fellowship and general sociability. Fourteen students were taking advantage of the plan by 1960. The patrons were principally unmarried male students, who comprised from one-half to one-third of the student body in the 1950s. In 1959, of the twenty-one Crane students, ten were married; twenty of the thirty students in 1960 were married. Student-run activities of a more academic nature were conducted through the Skinner Fellowship which offered a variety of programs, including outside speakers. Close student-faculty relations were encouraged by such activities as periodic retreats. The first one, held at Senexet House in South Woodstock, Connecticut, took place in 1960.

Another opportunity for inventorying the school in terms of its needs came between 1956 and 1958 with the intensive and extensive Tufts-Carnegie Self-Study. The self-study brought forth a dreary

Very few of the part-time faculty taught for more than a year or even more than one semester. The turnover was frequent even among those who became full-time, as did Charles S. Milligan, who was employed in 1956 as Associate Professor of Philosophy and Theology after serving briefly on a part-time basis; he departed after one year. Howard E. Hunter, who was the only full-time, tenured faculty member when the school closed, started out as a part-time instructor and was made full-time in 1958; he resigned in 1961 but returned later. The goal of six full-time faculty was almost achieved in 1959, but the school was still one member short. The number was certainly more than sufficient for a student body of only twenty-three that year. Many of the faculty, such as Gene A. Reeves, who was hired in 1962, were themselves working on advanced degrees; he was a doctoral candidate at Emory University at the time of his employment at Crane.

Great strides had been made in providing more adequate theological library materials and service with the employment of Alan Seaburg, a Tufts alumnus who had earned his BD in 1957 and subsequently a library degree at another institution. He divided his time between the Crane library and various bibliographical projects under the supervision of the University Librarian. The accreditation team recommended a full-time librarian with faculty status and a greatly increased budget for library materials. An annual expenditure of at least $3,200 was specified, while only $750 was budgeted for

The Crane School sponsored one scholarly journal during its ninety-nine year history. The Crane Review, the first issue of which appeared in the fall of 1958, was edited initially by Ernest Cassara, who had joined the faculty (part-time) in 1955 and had become fulltime a year later. The publication, which the Tufts administration encouraged with start-up money, was a combined effort of students, faculty, and alumni, with articles also by many scholars from outside the university. The press run averaged about 600, about equally divided by 1960 between individual subscribers and institutional purchases and exchanges. The journal, of serious intent and generally high quality, came to an end in 1968 with the closing of the school. The journal had served to advertise the school even though the clientele was very limited.

The school extended the scope of its activities in the late 1950s and into the 1960s with several special programs and institutes. In 1959 it hosted a successful colloquium on science and religion which attracted widespread attention, and in the fall of 1963 had held a conference on the ministry attended by forty clergy. Ministerial education was the subject of a meeting of the sixteen district executives of the (by then) combined Unitarian Universalist denomination held at Tufts in 1965 to which all theological faculty were invited.

On the recommendation of Dean Hersey the trustees approved two new Crane degrees in 1961: A three-year program leading to a BD in Religious Education, and a two-year Master of Religious Education program. A new faculty member, R. John Waka, was employed to offer courses leading to the new degrees. The primary purpose was to attract more students by offering enlarged opportunities. But the effort had no positive effect whatever on enrollment. In fact, the school experienced what the president called an "alarming'" drop of degree candidates in the next four years (from thirty in 1960 to a low of seventeen in 1964). He warned the trustees that the future status and role of the Crane School had to be a matter of "careful scrutiny."

Wessell had already (in 1963) forewarned them that denominational policy might call for the merger of Crane with a theological

One result of this policy was the reunion of the Crane faculty with the Tufts Faculty of Arts and Sciences; the theological school faculty had disassociated itself in 1962 and reported directly to the trustees. The original intent had been to elevate Crane to the rank of a separate professional graduate school. However, the Crane faculty had soon realized that the school did not have the resources to lead even a quasi-independent existence. Rejoining the combined faculties was accomplished in 1965, when the new program was instituted. It called for increased involvement of university faculty in the instruction of Crane students, so the step was a logical one. After Unitarian-Univeralist consolidation had been officially accomplished in 1961 by the creation of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) headquartered in Boston, an attempt had been made to provide a central fund each year which would be allocated to the five theological schools which enrolled most of its students. A Joint Fund for Theological Education of $89,000 was budgeted for 1962, although that amount was never actually raised. The Tufts and St. Lawrence theological schools received the least, the lion's share going to the Starr King School on the West Coast. The Tufts allocation of 15 percent of the total was $6,297 for 1963 and $5,844 a year later.

Even more significant for the future of Crane was the report of a Committee to Study Theological Education headed by Raymond B.Johnson, formerly director of the Unitarian Department of the Ministry. The report, made in 1962, set in motion a series of events which had a profoundly unsettling impact on the school.

[] See the Final Report of the Study Committee for the Crane Theological School (Tufts-Carnegie Self-Study, 1 July 1958), pp. 864-76.