Frederick W. Hamilton
President, 1905 - 1912
“The third tradition [of Tufts] is that of manhood and womanhood. Tufts lives not simply to make calculating machines, sociologists, or biologists. She lives to make men and women."
– Frederick William Hamilton from a speech given on the 9th annual Tufts Night, Tufts Weekly, September 27, 1906
Like his predecessor, Tufts' fourth president was an alumnus of the College, and his term would leave a lasting mark. Frederick Hamilton’s inauguration was celebrated in 1906 in conjunction with the College’s 50th Commencement exercises.
Though women had been admitted to the College in 1892 under President Capen, coeducation at Tufts remained a topic of debate. Tufts new president soon began a campaign to fund and establish a “coordinate” college for women at Tufts, ordering a comparative study of similar educational models and soliciting and receiving input from alumni, faculty, and colleagues in higher education. An alternative to both women's colleges and fully coeducational schools, coordinate colleges provided women with a separate, and supposedly equal, education at a women's college that existed in conjunction with a men's school.
In January 1910, President Hamilton met with the women of the All Around Club, assuring them that his goal in creating a separate educational institution on the Hill was to see such an increase in the admission of women, “until the number might even equal that of the women‘s colleges in New England, such as Smith, or Wellesley.” (Tufts Weekly, January 27, 1910, page 1.) Funding was secured through the bequest of Cornelia Jackson (1822-1895), designated to “remove the disabilities of women” and to establish “a building to be designated as ‘The Cornelia M. Jackson College for Women’ and for the provision of special instruction for women ‘in the duties and privileges of American citizenship, and in the theory and working of the United States government.’”
The Tufts Weekly recorded student reaction to the the announcement in 1910, noting, “Neither sex has anything to lose by the change, both have much to gain. Instead of there being one institution there should be two distinct and flourishing institutions, each successfully pursuing its own way.” (Tufts Weekly, April 21, 1910, page 2.)
President Hamilton stepped down from the presidency in 1912. Segregated instruction lasted only a few years, and by the time the catalogue for 1913 was published all mention of separate classes for women was gone.