Hampshire Tree (seal)



The design for the seal is based on an older logo used since Hampshire's beginnings. Known as the Hampshire Tree, it included roots and a slightly different configuration of the branches. According to the Hampshire Enrchidion, "it appears that the tree was drawn by first Hampshire President Franklin Patterson's son Eric. The memo, dated 1968, is addressed to Franklin Patterson by Humanities and Arts faculty member John Boettiger, and points out similarities between the Hampshire tree and early Mesopotamian representations of the tree of life." It was actually modeled after a breadfruit tree. In addition to the tree, the seal features Hampshire's motto, Non Satis Scire (which translates as "To Know is Not Enough") and the year 1970, the first year students were admitted to the college. Some versions feature the year 1965, when the idea for the school was conceived.

History
The Hampshire tree has been a symbol of the college since at least 1966--it appears on the covers of the very early editions of The Making of a College and the series of Planning Bulletins the college published between 1969 and 1971. From the evidence of a single memo (widely circulated at the time) it appears that the tree was drawn by first Hampshire President Franklin Patterson's son Eric. The memo, dated 1968, is addressed to Franklin Patterson by Humanities and Arts faculty member John Boettiger, and points out similarities between the Hampshire tree and early Mesopotamian representations of the tree of life.

When the first Hampshire students arrived in 1970, they saw a different similarity. The Hampshire tree was replaced by a marijuana leaf on the masthead of some of the first editions of the Climax, the student newspaper. As the college endeavored to move away from its original, largely inadvertent image as a "hippie college", the tree fell out of favor as a symbol.

In 1994, just before the college's 25th anniversary, the administration introduced a new graphic identity centering on the now familiar "H" logo. Developed by an outside design firm, the goal was to create a new, recognizable logo for college stationery and publications. The change was highly controversial at the time, and drew protests from students, staff and alumni. The tree however was retained on the great seal of the college, though it was redesigned to fit into a circle, losing some of its roots in the process. All controversies tend to fade as time passes, and at present, the tree and the H seem to happily coexist as symbols of Hampshire College.

Memo re Tree, 1968
April 12, 1968

To: Franklin Patterson From: John Boettiger Subject: The Tree of Hampshire College

I've had in mind for some time a question for you: do you know what inspired Eric, or what he intended, in drawing the tree that adorns our published working papers and briefs? The aspect that struck me as particularly interesting was the two leaves, apart from the rest, leaning toward the ground--offering, perhaps, a hint of fall and the natural cycle of life.

In any event, I recently came across a variety of very early--Mesopotamian--representations of the Tree of Life that bear a strong similarity to Eric's design. The two downward-leaning branches, though, bear not leaves but the fruit of the tree--in rather the same shape as Eric's leaves. Potent fruit--to nurture more than knowledge (Genesis 3:22-24). And the tree, a universal symbol of that which the College exists to manifest and serve; in short, to use a good phrase of Joseph Campbell, the College's "mythic identification."

What would you think of a small alteration, then, making the two lower leaves into fruit simply by erasing the extended stem of both, and adopting, as a positive counterpart of our College motto, the symbolization of the Tree of Life?