October 1939

Former trustee Russell C. Leffingwell gave an outdoor classroom near Ely Hall, designed by Molly S. Drysdale ’31.

“The trustees…established a committee on Undergraduate Life, and discussed the general college policy quite frankly with [students.] It was after one of these sessions that Russell Leffingwell, formerly Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, and an active trustee, expressed himself as so delighted with the students’ maturity in dealing with these questions that he wanted to signalize the day in some way. Thus was built the open-air classroom, with its praise (by Pericles, of course) of free discussion, and of the value of action after it. ‘For we Athenians have the peculiar power of thinking before we act, and of acting too.’”

Henry Noble MacCracken, The Hickory Limb