Liberal Arts, Inc. - Abandonment and Controversy

Abandonment and Controversy

In August 1947, it was formally announced that the project was abandoned. Conflicting accounts of the circumstances subsequently transpired.

The stated reason was "inability to secure funds for the extensive building program needed to provide an adequate physical plant." In more detail, the trustees of the Old Dominion Foundation—Mellon's fund "felt it was unwise to authorize invasion of principal for fear that the remaining endowment would be insufficient to accomplish the purpose of the gift. It was also felt that under the circumstances it would be wiser to place the endowment with an existing institution capable of housing the educational project which Old Dominion was prepared to endow. No such institution was found and it is understood that the grant will revert to the general funds of the foundation."

Sass suggests that that was not the real reason, but does not say what the real reason was:

The published reason was that the Mellon grant of $4½ million was not sufficient to convert the existing buildings and grounds into a complex suitable for a campus. Personally, I never believed that this was the real reason. Although I came to know Scott Buchanan well, I did not pursue the matter because I was sure he did not want to talk about it. His son, Dr. Douglas Buchanan, a psychiatrist in the eastern part of the state, tells me that there was a "misunderstanding" between Paul Mellon and the board of directors.

A November 1947 article in the Springfield Republican says plainly that there was a conflict over politics:

Paul Mellon of Pittsburg, who was to have been the "angel" in the proposed new liberal-arts college... was there a few days before announcement was made that he had withdrawn his offer. It was said at the time that the political activities of an associate of Mr. Barr, annoyed Mr. Mellon and that was the reason the offer was withdrawn.

Charles A. Nelson devotes an entire chapter Radical Visions to the episode. He tells a complex and detailed story which does not mention any political issues and essentially agrees with the publicly stated reasons. In his view, Barr and Buchanan overreached, and believed that Mellon would agree or had agreed to a plan much more ambitious than his original intention.

Nelson makes clear the depth of Mellon's interest; this was not a casual millionaire's whim. Mellon had read a 1940 article about St. John's in Life Magazine, and wrote in his autobiography that after reading the article he drove to Annapolis

to offer financial assistance for the project, but I got so interested in it—this curriculum rooted in the medieval system of the trivium and the quadrivium—that I decided to sign on as a student.... I started in the autumn of 1940 as a mature student, being about fourteen years older than my fellow freshmen.... Mathematics proved a big problem. Purely by memorizing theorems at Choate, I had done well in plane geometry and had got a perfect score on my College Board examination, but at St. John’s the students were assigned some ten theorems a day. We were supposed to work them out to their QED solely by logic. When asked to prove one at the blackboard early in my first term, I was flabbergasted and unable to go beyond the first segment. This was highly embarrassing for a Yale and Cambridge graduate! ... I enjoyed my study of Greek language and literature, but I was very conscious of being nearer in age to the instructors than to the students, so after about six months I gave it up .

In April 1946 Mellon wrote of an interest in "in setting up an initial endowment for the St. John’s Program" but of being "deterred from action by doubts as to whether St. John’s College could keep its campus." He therefore set up the endowment but left in Barr's hands as to where the endowment should go. If St. John's was likely to lose its campus,

it might be more in the interest of American education to find a stronger institutional vehicle to develop the educational program which you initiated at St. John’s. I am therefore placing at the disposal of the Old Dominion Foundation securities, currently producing an income of $125,000 per annum, which may be used for the purpose of developing the type of education now carried on at St. John’s College, and for other similar purposes.

The Navy issue was resolved in favor of the college, so it might have been expected that Barr would recommend using the endowment to fund the St. John's program. Instead, Barr and Buchanan decided to found a new college. Nelson notes that "The grant letter did not envision starting a new college from scratch." Yet "the speed with which the two moved from seeking an existing institution stronger than St. John’s to acquiring property for a new college seems to indicate that Barr made no significant effort to find such an institution." Nelson suggests a fundamental understanding, in which "Mellon accepted the idea of a new college in the expectation that Barr could raise the additional funds to sustain it, whereas Barr interpreted Mellon’s acceptance of the substitution as a sign that he, Mellon, would supply the necessary additional funds." In a 1947 letter, Mellon wrote:

Dear Winkie: ...my idea (and I understood it to be yours) was that some college for undergraduates similar in size and curriculum to St. John’s should be the beneficiary of the gift. When you went to Massachusetts, it was my understanding that it was to form such a college. Through circumstances beyond your control, that project now appears unfeasible, if not impossible, within any reasonable amount of time, chiefly due to the lack of qualified teachers and adequate building funds. As an alternative, you have requested Old Dominion Foundation, through me, to release the entire benefits of the endowment fund to Liberal Arts, Inc.... for purposes which seem to me extremely vague.... Since I am extremely doubtful that the income from this endowment would in the long run be adequate to carry on whatever purpose you envisage (which I gather would involve considerable expansion of your present adult education plan), and in addition take care of a future undergraduate college, I do not feel at liberty to recommend such action to Old Dominion Foundation as being practical or consistent with our original agreement, intentions or plans. Under the circumstances, it would seem the wisest and fairest thing to do would be to abandon any plans in connection with the Stockbridge project on the grounds of the impossibility or impracticality of carrying out the original intention, that is, of providing endowment for a college for undergraduates similar in size and curriculum to St. John’s College.