At various times in its history Tufts had had the opportunity to engage in cooperative ventures with several neighboring institutions, including Harvard. In some instances fruitful arrangements were worked out, while in others the College found it to its best interests not to commit itself at all, or to do so for only a brief period. One proposal that would have gone even further than cooperation had come from the Emerson College of Oratory but died aborning. Charles Wesley Emerson proposed a union of his school with Tufts in 1899, the same year that the Boston Dental College became the nucleus of the Tufts Dental School. The Trustees declined to enter into negotiations with Emerson College because at the time they were dubious "whether the work done is on a par

The subject of university extension courses offered jointly by Boston-area colleges had been broached by Harvard in 1909-10. The idea was instantly approved, and a Commission on Extension Courses was created, consisting of representatives from Boston College, Boston University, Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Museum of Fine Arts, Simmons College, Tufts, and Wellesley. The program was financed by a combination of contributions from the Lowell Institute, the Boston Chamber of Commerce, and tuition charges. The courses, offered in the belief that many adults wished to extend their intellectual horizons, were given by members of the faculties of the cooperating institutions and corresponded as closely as possible to regular curricular offerings. The degree of Associate of Arts was established in 1910 by the Tufts Trustees on recommendation of the faculty for those who wished to take advantage of the adult education program and who wished to "avoid the technicalities of definite entrance requirements."[19]  During 1910-11, a total of twelve late afternoon and evening courses offered by the seven institutions attracted 650 students. A member of the Tufts faculty offered the basic course in economics. Tufts' rather nominal participation in the university extension program lasted until the eve of the Second World War, when the College (in 1939-40) opened its own Extension Division. Comparatively few persons at Tufts took advantage of the cooperative program, although it was still listed in the catalogue until 1954-55. In the meantime, the degree had been redesignated "Adjunct in Arts" in 1935.

One experiment in inter-institutional cooperation that was tried briefly, languished, and was temporarily revived was initiated in 1904 by the dean of the Boston University Law School. Graduates of Tufts who had earned six to twelve credits in Public Law

The idea was revived in 1920 as part of a grand design suggested by President L. H. Murlin of Boston University. He proposed a whole series of combined schools including one in medicine, in dentistry, and one in law. They were to be known respectively as the Boston University-Tufts Medical School, the Boston University-Tufts Dental School, and the Union Law School. The latter was to be a joint enterprise of Boston University, Boston College, and Tufts. The dean of the Boston University Law School worked out an arrangement so that students in each of the participating colleges would be able to obtain training in law and receive their degrees from their home institution. A minimum of two years of college was to be required for entrance into the program and the curriculum was to be arranged so that a student might secure both his A.B. or B.S. degree and the degree of LL.B. in six years (or seven, if the law school course were extended to seven years). This plan failed to materialize, for authorities at Boston University raised objections to certain aspects of the proposal, and Tufts was unwilling to accept a compromise which would have given the College representation on a Board of Management but without an actual voice in the control of the affairs of the law school.

The proposals for jointly operated medical and dental schools were worked out in even greater detail than the plan for a law school. Each school was to have been administered by a committee of faculty and trustees representing both institutions, and graduates would have received a diploma signed by the presidents and

By the time the arrangement with Harvard had been worked out in relation to the Fletcher School, Tufts had already been involved in at least three joint programs with the institution in Cambridge. The first concerned the Forsyth Dental Infirmary, which had opened in 1914 and was intended originally to have been operated exclusively by Tufts, but became a project shared with Harvard.[21]  Austin Fletcher, chairman of the Tufts Trustees at the time, never became reconciled to the cooperative arrangement. When he undertook to brief Bumpus on the College's affairs when the latter became president in the fall of 1914, Fletcher informed him of his sentiments in no uncertain terms. Fletcher explained that the Forsyth Dental Infirmary "started out as an attachment to our dental school, but it was too big a thing for Harvard to allow us to have." According to the disgruntled Tufts Trustee, the Tufts representatives on the original Forsyth Board of Trustees were asked to resign

The second attempt at cooperation with Harvard met a somewhat similar fate. President Cousens, who had succeeded Bumpus, had developed what he considered "very cordial relations" with President Lowell when in 1923 a "novel experiment" was tried of arranging a coordinate professorship in the two institutions for Dr. Frank Lahey, head of the Department of Surgery in the Tufts Medical School, and Dr. Harvey Cushing of Harvard. Dean Rushmore of Tufts was not at all enthusiastic, predicting (as it turned out, correctly) that the College would lose Dr. Lahey's services to Harvard. Dr. Lahey devoted so much time to the Deaconess Hospital that it was necessary for him to resign from the Boston City Hospital. This brought in turn his resignation from the Tufts staff because no other clinical facilities with which he was connected were available for teaching purposes. Lahey, however, maintained his connection with Tufts by becoming a Trustee in 1927.

A third experiment in cooperation with Harvard had been worked out in 1930, when the Crane School faculty voted to affiliate with the theological school at Harvard in certain respects. The proposal, received from Dean Willard Sperry of Harvard, went into effect in the middle of the academic year 1929-30. It involved the acceptance by the Tufts School of Religion of some students from Harvard and allowed the attendance by some Tufts students of courses at Harvard, all without payment of extra fees. The affiliation between the Tufts School of Religion and the Harvard Divinity School was still in existence when their parent institutions undertook the much more intricate task of operating the Fletcher School.

The memorandum of March 1932 drawn up between Tufts and Harvard was to become the basis on which the Fletcher School was finally organized, although many a change had to be made and many a delay recalled the Biblical statement quoted by Cousens to the Trustees in the fall of 1932: "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick." The memorandum provided that the name of the new facility would be the "Tufts College Fletcher School of Law and

The curriculum proposed for the school did not differ materially from that presented earlier to the Trustees by Cousens, but it was proposed in the 1932 memorandum to offer not only a Master's degree but also a Ph.D. At an organization meeting in June 1932, Dean Pound outlined a curriculum which was rejected by both Cousens and Lowell on the ground that it was too narrow. Pound admitted that he was thinking primarily in terms of a conventional law school which merely stressed international topics, but he had a reason for it. A short time before, he had warned Cousens of the danger of making the Fletcher School "too broad at the start. . . . I have a horror of ambitious paper programs at all times, and in my experience they seldom come to anything in the setting up of professional schools." The idea of allowing Tufts undergraduates who were not candidates for the second or third degree to take one or more courses in the Fletcher School was broadened to include both Harvard undergraduates and graduate students. Tuition for a full program (four courses) was to be $300, and fees for non-degree students were to be charged by the semester hour. Registration and payment of fees were to be handled by Tufts, and the institution bearing the expense of non-degree students taking a partial course was to benefit from the fees. Degrees were to be conferred in the name of the Tufts Trustees and at Tufts

The plan outlined above was unanimously approved "in general" by the Tufts Trustees at the same meeting it was presented. Cousens was authorized to work out the details, after which a definite decision would be made. Sufficient progress had apparently been registered by the summer of 1932 to appoint Mrs. Roland G. (Marguerite S.) Hopkins and Frederick C. Hodgdon to the Joint Executive Committee as the Tufts Trustee representatives. While waiting for other problems to be settled, the Trustees authorized their two representatives to spend up to $5,000 "to make a comprehensive survey with reference to what is being done in education in foreign relations in America and abroad, which may serve as a guide in determining the purpose of the proposed Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy."

After having carefully laid the groundwork for the school with President Lowell by lengthy conferences and a mountainous exchange of correspondence in 1932, Cousens faced another discouraging prospect. The president of Harvard announced his resignation in November 1932, effective the following September, and the Tufts president apparently had to start all over again. For the moment it seemed that the long years of perplexity and the struggle to work out a successful plan for using Fletcher's gift had been in vain. Negotiations with Harvard, which had proved "very difficult and delicate," had apparently brought matters around in a complete circle. There was serious talk in the fall of 1932 of having Tufts try to proceed alone. Trustee Robert W. Hill, like Cousens, was afraid that during the transition period at Harvard, Dean Pound might exercise such influence on the character of the project that it might "develop into nothing more than an adjunct to the Harvard Law School." Cousens hoped to push the project sufficiently rapidly to have the cooperative effort of the two institutions as worked out in the memorandum of 1932 go into effect before Lowell actually left office.

Cousens tried to turn the delay in deciding on the fate of the proposed school to advantage. If its opening had to be postponed, at least an additional year's income could be accumulated in the Fletcher Law School Fund and a careful assessment could be made of its worth. The sharp decline in security values during the depression had a pronounced effect on the Fletcher resources. Cousens had the College auditors divide the securities into two groups, one representing the principal, having a book value of $1,000,000 and comprising the soundest investments, and the other representing accumulated income, with a book value of $366,000 and made up of securities of less stable character. Tufts had sole responsibility for the Fletcher Fund both by the conditions of the original gift and under the proposed plan of joint operation with Harvard. Only by showing in the principal the soundest securities possible could Harvard be assured that estimated income would be available. Furthermore, the school had to be started in a new building appropriate to its needs, not in "makeshift, borrowed quarters," either at Tufts or at Harvard. An adequate headquarters "rather better built and furnished than any. . so far constructed" should cost no more than $200,000. Delay in starting construction could be justified on several grounds. The translation of the book value into actual sale value of accumulated income would return less than $115,000; the dean or director, who should certainly have something to say about the proposed building, had not yet been selected; the security market would (it was hoped) improve; and approximately $70,000 in additional income would be available by waiting a year or so.

Negotiations with Harvard continued in the winter of 1932-33. Cousens' contact with Lowell's successor, Dr. James B. Conant, restored at least a degree of confidence that satisfactory negotiations could continue. The Tufts president told the Trustees that the new president of Harvard was "already vitally interested in the Fletcher School and may be depended upon to cooperate fully in its development." Meanwhile, sufficient progress had been made by April, while Lowell was still in office, to result in another "Memorandum of Understanding" between the two institutions, based on prior approval by the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard. Much of the memorandum was a reiteration of arrangements already embodied in the previous agreement, although certain additions and

It was decided that initially the courses of study should lead only to the Master of Arts degree, and that the majority of such work would be done on the Tufts campus. Eventually the Ph.D. would be offered, with the major part of the candidates' time to be spent at Harvard. It was proposed that the course of study for the first year of the school would be arranged on the basis of a full calendar year; that a student could complete the M.A. in the academic year (September to June); and if the candidate wished to receive a Master of Arts in his special field of study (e.g., Master of Arts in International Law and Organization), he could attend a summer session which would round out a twelve-month year. The summer quarter would give non-degree candidates from either institution an additional opportunity to enroll in the Fletcher School for special courses. The number of degree candidates was to be "strictly limited" to fifty. This figure was considered desirable because the school was to be on a very high scholastic level and because it was "likely that the demand for the product of the School [would] not be great." Tuition for degree candidates in the nine-months course would be $300, and for the full-year course, $400.

The memorandum of 1933 was to continue as the basis of operations unless terminated by written notice of either party, allowing sufficient time to enable the school to fulfill its obligations to accepted and enrolled students. Modifications in the understanding could be made under the same condition by mutual consent. The sum of $25,000 was appropriated by the Trustees to cover general expenses, and an additional $5,000 was provided for a limited number of fellowships and scholarships.[24] 

Rules governing the admission of students and the granting of degrees were also adopted at the March meeting in 1933. Undergraduate preparatory studies were to have included a reading knowledge of French or German (although a reading knowledge of two or more modern foreign languages was "strongly recommended"), three years of history, and one year each in government and economics. The Executive Committee of the Fletcher School, taking its cue from the March agreement, decided in the fall of 1933 to grant, besides the conventional M.A., the special degree of Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy (M.A.L.D.). This degree was introduced primarily for those contemplating careers in the Foreign Service or in business enterprises rather than for those interested in strictly academic pursuits. It called for at least one year in residence, presentation of a satisfactory thesis, and the passing of an examination before a committee of the faculty.[25]  The number of groups from which students were to select one for concentrated attention was reduced to three in this version of the curriculum (International Law and Organization, Diplomacy and International Relations, and International Economics). Several courses were common to two or all three groups.

Although no mention was made of it in the 1933 memorandum, Cousens held tenaciously to the idea of a tie-in between the new school and the undergraduate school of liberal arts. The dean of Tufts undergraduates shared the same view. Even after the Fletcher School had opened, he hoped that "many of the properly qualified students in the School of Liberal Arts may take advantage of the opportunity of doing work in International Law and advanced courses in Government." He made a point of the fact that four of the courses in the Fletcher curriculum were already being offered in Tufts and were open for either graduate or undergraduate credit. In fact, "all of the subjects specified as necessary for candidacy for the Master's degree are now offered in our School of Liberal Arts, except a year of comparative government or political science." He still felt that some of the courses in the Fletcher

The Tufts Trustees in the summer of 1933 certainly seemed to be satisfied with the progress of negotiations that had led to the establishment of the Fletcher School. They not only ratified the action taken by the president and the Executive Committee but expressed their "sincere appreciation of the successful manner in which the president of the College conducted the negotiations with Harvard University, to bring this cooperative enterprise to a successful beginning." But not even they apparently appreciated fully the difficulties that Cousens faced in his almost daily concern for the welfare of the project so close to his heart. Problem after problem dogged the negotiations and planning for the new school.

Finances continued to be of paramount importance, and they affected almost every move that was made or contemplated. The determination to provide housing for the Fletcher School by way of a building constructed expressly for its use still held firm through the fall of 1932. But then the full effects of the Great Depression began to be felt. For the first time in the history of the Eppinger and Russell Company (the stock of which comprised almost all of the Fletcher residuum from which money was to come for new buildings), a substantial deficit occurred.[26]  For years it had been necessary for the College to borrow in anticipation of receipts from students. It was the good fortune of the institution to be able in the 1930's to use the Eppinger and Russell cash surplus as the source of loans instead of having recourse to an outside bank. Convenient as this arrangement might have been, it had the natural result of reducing the potential resources from which building funds could be obtained. While President Cousens watched financial depression eat away at the Eppinger and Russell reserves, arranging a home for the Fletcher School was made imperative by

Staffing the new school was even more tangled and frustrating than being forced to house the Fletcher School in makeshift quarters. Among the appointments considered in the memorandum of March 1932 had been George Grafton Wilson of Harvard, who might serve at least temporarily as dean; and Halford L. Hoskins, Dickson Professor of English and American History and chairman of the Tufts Department of History, who might serve as vice-dean. Eleven men were suggested for the faculty from Harvard and three from Tufts (Professors Hoskins, Ruhl J. Bartlett [History], and Earle M. Winslow [Economics]). It was understood "in general"

The Tufts Trustees, not wishing to delay the opening of the school any longer, voted in March 1933 to enroll students that fall, with Professor Hoskins as acting dean.[30]  The Memorandum

The original Fletcher faculty were elected for one year by the Trustees on June 17, 1933, and in October their official titles were adopted. Halford L. Hoskins was appointed Acting Dean and Professor of Diplomacy and International Relations. The other Professors of Diplomacy and International Relations were George H. Blakeslee, Arthur N. Holcombe, and William L. Langer. Lauchlin B. Currie and Seymour E. Harris were appointed Professors of International Economics. Those serving as Professors of Public and International Law were Roscoe Pound, Josef Redlich, Julius Stone, and George Grafton Wilson. Albert E. Hindmarsh held the rank and title of Assistant Professor of International Law.[31]  After seemingly endless negotiations, the problems of staff appeared to have been solved.

Another major stumbling block in putting the school into operation had been removed in the summer of 1933. If the school was to serve the purposes set out for it, the granting of the Ph.D. was a logical goal, and had been so assumed when the memorandum of 1932 had been prepared. However, by the spring of 1933 it had become unmistakably clear that there was insufficient money in the Fletcher Fund to establish the special library that would be indispensable for research at the doctoral level. The resources of Eaton Library were focused on undergraduate instruction and even in that respect were far from ideal. In 1930 Cousens had requested the College librarian to inventory the existing collection and to make some estimates of the expenditures necessary for a minimum working collection for the Fletcher School. The results were most discouraging. The library was already a partial depository of the documents of the federal government and of the publications of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. A start had been made in 1929 to purchase the publications of the

The impasse over library needs was broken in the summer of 1933, when the director of the World Peace Foundation, at the prompting of Acting Dean Hoskins, formally proposed that its library, consisting of more than 40,000 books, documents, and pamphlets, be placed in the custody of the Fletcher School for an indefinite period, as soon as accommodations became available. This invaluable addition to the Fletcher School was in no sense an unheralded windfall. President Cousens had carefully and patiently started negotiations to that end in 1929, when he suggested to Raymond T. Rich, general secretary of the Foundation, "a possibility of cooperative effort" between that organization and the proposed school. The first tangible result of consultations with the Tufts librarian was the placing of orders for selected publications of the League of Nations, the World Court, and the International Labor Office, to be housed in Eaton Library.

The Foundation collection was transferred to Goddard Hall in the fall of 1933. The basement of the old gymnasium became the stack area, and what had been the basketball cage became the reading room. The research director of the Foundation, Mr. Denys P. Myers, was employed by the College as research librarian, in

The curricular and degree requirements that had been outlined early in 1933 were further defined and amplified later in the year. The eleven courses comprising the first curriculum were divided among three groups, under the headings of Public and International Law, Diplomacy and International Relations, and International Economics. Candidates for the Master of Arts degree were expected to complete one year in residence, carry a program of four courses (two of them in the group in which the student wished to specialize), exhibit a reading knowledge of one foreign language (French, Spanish, or German), present a satisfactory thesis, and pass an examination before a committee of the faculty. The degree of Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy required, in addition to one foreign language and a thesis, the passing of a general oral examination in four approved special fields of study selected from the three groups. It was anticipated that the requirements for this degree could not be met in less than two years.[34] 

The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy opened its doors the second week of October 1933 to twenty-one students, all college or university graduates, four of them already holding a Master's degree. The first class represented twelve states and nineteen institutions and thus set the pattern for a cosmopolitan student

Austin Fletcher's dream had finally come true. It was, in Cousens' enthusiastic language, a "magnificent start" which seemed "incredible." He had ventured to predict in the fall of 1933 that "unless we are wholly deceived as to the future possibilities, it is reasonable to prophesy that the opening of the Fletcher School will prove the most important event in the history of Tufts College." He praised the work of Professor Hoskins, who, lacking "a wider reputation in international affairs," had the great assets of "enthusiasm and intimate knowledge of the situation of the College." The prospects of the Fletcher School looked promising indeed. With a uniquely valuable library of great renown and one of the most distinguished faculties that could have been assembled, the school might not only become the center of interest in international affairs in the Northeast but could serve the community of nations on a scale well outside the boundaries of the United States. President Cousens' optimism was based on events that occurred even before the school was formally opened on October 27, 1933, with keynote addresses by James T. Shotwell of New York and Professor Charles W. Hackett of the University of Texas. The Fletcher School almost immediately received a joint invitation from the Foreign Policy Association and the World Peace Foundation to collaborate in organizing national committees of experts

[19] Tufts required that a candidate earn at least 30 credits of the 102 needed for the degree in "subjects given by officers of instruction of Tufts College or by authority of Tufts College." Although the student had to earn at least six credits in courses in each of four broad groups, one of which was Language, Literature, Fine Arts, and Music, there was no foreign language requirement per se. The first recipient of a Tufts Associate in Arts degree (1914) was enrolled in Jackson College.

[20] The first recipient, A. W. DeGoosh, who had received a Ph.B. from Tufts in 1893, actually was enrolled in the special program before it was formally established and received an A.B. extra ordinem from Tufts in 1896 simultaneously with an LL.B. from Boston University.

[21] See Chapter 8.

[22] Cousens acceded regretfully to this denial of equal educational opportunity for women. Harvard in 1932 had no intention of reversing its historic policy of prohibiting women students from attending courses in its buildings. This rule was not relaxed even for Radcliffe students until 1943.

[23] The memorandum, undated, was assigned the date of April 10, 1933, by the secretary of the Tufts Trustees, based on the time of the letter of transmittal to President Lowell.

[24] The first such awards were made to four students in 1933-34 and consisted of tuition for the academic year plus $200. One of the fellowship recipients in 1934-35 was Robert B. Stewart, who was also appointed assistant in the Tufts Department of Government and later became dean of the Fletcher School.

[25] The original plan for a twelve-month year, including a summer session, never materialized.

[26] The Florida timberland, which comprised a significant part of the Fletcher assets, dropped precipitately in market value during the depression. At one time Fletcher had prophesied that the Florida land would eventually be worth $20,000,000; in 1913 it was being carried on the books at $100,000 - and even that figure was "considerably in excess of present values."

[27] The building officially became Goddard Hall in September 1933.

[28] Herter later became governor of Massachusetts and held important posts in the federal government. He was a Representative in the state legislature at the time Cousens' offer was made.

[29] Cousens' disappointment was compounded by the fact that he had been criticized for having in 1932 secured the authorization, at the suggestion of the Foreign Policy Association, of the generous sum of $5,000 to finance the preparation of a work by Dr. Raymond L. Buell on United States policy in the Caribbean. Buell was research director of the Foreign Policy Association. Cousens was frank to admit that the grant was partly "bait" to secure McDonald for the deanship.

[30] Because Hoskins still had duties as chairman of the History Department, the departmental headquarters was moved temporarily to Goddard Hall in the fall of 1933. It was returned to Braker Hill a year later.

[31] Hoskins' existing salary continued to be paid entirely from the school of liberal arts until he was made dean the following year. Pound volunteered his services without compensation, but the Trustees did vote him a stipend; Hindmarsh was also appointed Visiting Assistant Professor in Government in the school of liberal arts for the second semester of 1933-34 and 1934-35.

[32] The librarian reported the disturbing fact in 1932 that the Tufts Library contained less than 35 per cent of approximately 500 titles in political science considered indispensable in the Carnegie List of Books for College Libraries.

[33] One-half of his salary was paid out of Fletcher School funds; his term of service was at first "undetermined" but became an annual appointment. The same salary arrangement was provided for his combined secretary and assistant until 1936, when the Fletcher School became responsible for the entire salary. This came about because the Foundation's income had been "greatly reduced."

[34] The first act of the Fletcher faculty at its only meeting of record in 1933-34 was to establish academic standards. It was voted that "B-" would be the lowest acceptable mark in fulfilling the course requirements. It was also provided that in case of failure, a degree candidate had both to make up his course deficiencies and to repeat his oral examination. Degree recommendations the first year were made to the Joint Executive Committee, but thereafter directly to the Tufts Trustees.