The story of New College of Florida “merits attention . . . if only to record the perseverance of those who, for more than three decades, struggled to overcome numerous and daunting difficulties to help keep the institution alive.” So wrote Furman C. Arthur, the school’s first employee, in his introduction to New College: The First Three Decades . Founded in 1960 as a private school modeled in part on the Oxbridge tutorial system, the college offered a liberal arts education that valued independent thought and freedom of inquiry. In a still segregated South, it was also steadfastly “open to all races,” as a New York Times headline underscored in 1961. New College was a precarious project from the start—a beautiful idea, but always fragile.…