The 1953 Class Day exercises were held on the lawn behind South Hall.
as an integral part of the university. 18 Jacobs may well have been thinking of an arrangement somewhat like the one worked out by the Sargent School in Boston (a college specializing in physical education for women) which was bequeathed to Boston University and despite becoming a part of the university, remained an identifiable unit. The date for Brown to collect on the offer was I960, or Harry Jacob's death, whichever came sooner. If Brown declined, President Jacobs would be obliged to offer the school to another educational institution. (Everyone assumed that this clause referred to Providence College.) On April 30, I949, the bill was passed by the Rhode Island legislature and thus Bryant became a non-profit institution governed by a board of trustees. 19 Bryant College ceased to be anyone's private property. The college was exempt from federal income taxes, but the state legislature held out for a few more years of property taxes and did not approve the state tax exemption until I95 8. 20 Brown University's president, Henry Wriston, did not quite know how a business school would fit into his university. He was a classicist, a believer in a traditional education, the last of a long line of ministers who had been heads of the university. Wriston hedged. Brown's next president, Barnaby Keeney, saw Bryant as a two-year college with a restricted program, too different from Brown-a four-year institution devoted to the liberal arts. In I956, four years before the due date, he declined the offer once and for all, saying, "Brown and Bryant serve two different functions. ,,21 Providence College, under the leadership of another classicist, Father Robert Slavin, also declined. Publicly, Father Slavin said Bryant could do best as a separate college. 22 At that point, an amendment to the original bill had to be passed stating that in I960, Bryant College would be independent, not the property of Brown University or any other institution. Possibly, Harry Jacobs had counted on this tum of events. Certainly, Bryant College had much to gain in becoming tax-exempt.