Springfield College (Massachusetts) Springfield College (Massachusetts) Springfield College is a private, coeducational college located in Springfield, Massachusetts. The institution confers undergraduate, post-graduate, and doctoral degrees. Known as the birthplace of basketball, the sport was invented there in 1891 by Canadian graduate student James Naismith. The college's philosophy of "humanics" "calls for the education of the whole person—in spirit, mind, and body—for leadership in service to others." It is symbolized by a triangle. Founded in 1885, as the Young Men's Christian Association department of the School for Christian Workers in Springfield, the school originally specialized in preparing young men to become General Secretaries of
James Dyer Ball James Dyer Ball James Dyer Ball (波乃耶) (4 December 1847 in Canton, China – 22 February 1919 in London, England) was a Hong Kong scholar and author born in Canton. He is noted for works on Chinese culture and for contributing to the development of the system of Cantonese Romanisation. Ball was the son of the Reverend Dyer Ball of Massachusetts, United States, and his much younger second wife, Scottish missionary Isabella Robertson. Apart from preaching, his father ran a dispensary and opened a school in Canton, Guangzhou. At age 7, Ball's family began three years of travel in Britain