Yale University

“ Harvard has on the whole been radical and progressive; Yale conservative. Yale could not draw, like Harvard, on the leaders of the New England schools of letters and philosophy to fill her professorial chairs. Her “comparative poverty, the strength of college feelings and traditions” (President Hadley) united with the lesser stimulus of her intellectual environment to delay her development. Harvard's transformation into a modern university was more spontaneous and rapid; Yale remained much longer under the dominance of collegiate traditions. ”

“ Yale College well deserves the name of university in common with its great rival, Harvard. The advance it has made within the last twenty-five years is something really remarkable, and, to the great honor of its governing body, this advance has kept pace in linguistic studies with the improvement in the departments of mathematics and physics. One of the functions of a university is the production of really learned and solid books for the instruction of readers generally, as well as students in particular branches. ”

“ THE YALE BICENTENNIAL EXERCISES.
Universities are among the most stable of institutions. Glasgow University recently celebrated its ninth jubilee, while Harvard University commemorated in 1886 the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its foundation. Yale University, the third in age of our American colleges, is now two hundred years old and the event has been celebrated in a manner commensurate with the prestige of the institution. ”

“ But in practice the “Yale Spirit” preserves the unity of each class from entrance to graduation; the “average man” is much more of a controlling factor than he is at Harvard, and the solid body of students in the Department of Arts and Sciences gives tone to the whole university. Yale is typically American in its love of liberty and its faculty of self-organization. It draws its support from a wider range of country than either Harvard or [Pg 231] Princeton. It has not been a leader in the production of advanced ideas or educational methods. Originality is not its mark. ”

“ The Yale University Mission found itself compelled to set up elementary schools to teach the elementary Western knowledge which was necessary before even the lowest grade of college work could be attempted. Western teachers are, as we have before explained, few and far between outside the mission schools, and therefore mission schools would both help and be helped by a University. The University completes the work they have begun, and returns the men to the mission to carry on its work with honour and efficiency. ”

“ The graduate school, organized in 1847, is under the direction of the philosophical faculty. The degrees of Ph.D. and C.E. were first offered in 1860, M.E. in 1873, M.A. (previously given without evidence of study) in 1874, and M.S. in 1897. In almost all of these departments voluntary associations of instructors and students meet periodically for purposes of research. Nine fellowships of $400 are open to graduates of all colleges; one of $300 to a graduate of one of the California universities; and fifteen to graduates only of Yale College. There are besides 30 scholarships of $100. ”

“ Living immediately about Harvard were most of the leading American authors, and this fact greatly influenced that university; at Yale less was made of literature as such, and more was made of it as a means to an end—as ancillary in the discussion of various militant political questions. Yale had writers strong, vigorous, and acute: of such were Woolsey, Porter, Bacon, and Bushnell, some of whom,—and, above all, the last,—had they devoted themselves to pure literature, would have gained lasting fame ”

“ And it is good for Yale or any other university, to have these developed upon the field of competitive athletics as in other departments of college life, essential and subsidiary. In the matter of Saturday’s game, this applies as much to those who, filled with foreboding, assembled none the less thousands upon thousands to cheer and sing for Yale, as to the players.
“I don’t know that we can hold Princeton,” said a Yale coach a few hours before the contest. “Privately, I don’t think we can. But you may count upon this: not a man of Yale will yield to-day until he is carried from the field.” ”

“ The divinity school is academically independent, though closely allied. There are no other professional schools. Thus Princeton is distinctly “a collegiate university,” with a very definite idea of what a liberal education ought to include, and a fixed purpose of developing the individual by leading him through a regulated intellectual discipline.
Yale, the second in age of the American universities, occupies a middle ground, and fills it with immense vigour. Very slow in yielding to the elective system, Yale theoretically adopted it four years ago in its extreme form. ”

“ Then, with the intention of being jocose, we remarked, "The Yale eleven with characteristic bulldog grit and courage carried the ball over the line." To our horror and amazement the audience immediately broke into applause and long cheers.
Some of my best friends are Yale men and there is no basis for the common Harvard assumption that graduates of New Haven's leading university are of necessity inferior to the breed of Cambridge. Still, there is, perhaps, just a shade of difference in the keenness of perception for wit. ”

“ He graduated at Yale in 1849, continued his studies there and at Bonn and Berlin, was professor of sacred literature and New Testament Greek in the Yale Divinity School from 1858 to 1886, was licensed to preach in 1861, and from 1886 to 1899 was president of Yale, which during his administration greatly prospered and became in name and in fact a university. ”

“ Yale is a university made up of Yale College, the Sheffield Scientific School, the Yale Law School, the Yale Medical School, the Yale Art School, the Yale Divinity School, etc. On every Yale team that goes to the Intercollegiate games there are College men, Sheff men, and frequently men who are in the Medical School or other departments of the University. ”

“ Before deciding, he wrote to three eastern colleges, amongst others to Yale, the only American university which by its buildings and surroundings can lay any claim to compare, even at a long distance, in beauty and associations, with the least among European universities. ”

“ As you gentlemen of good old Yale are studying American social conditions, I am glad to have the opportunity of addressing you, and I congratulate you on the prestige you will derive from graduating at so great and famous a university. You are now on the threshold of American citizenship and have good reason to be proud of the prospect before you, with its unlimited possibilities. ”

“ He drew up and published in Latin the first code of laws, catalogued the library, and drafted a new charter which was approved by the General Assembly in 1745. By this act the former trustees were incorporated under the name of ‘the President and Fellows of Yale College in New Haven.’ Clap erected Connecticut Hall (South Middle) , then ‘the best building in the colony,’ and a chapel ( the Athenæum ) . President Clap also successfully defended the college against attempted interference in its management by the Legislature. ”

“ The corporation alone has power to confer degrees.
The courses of study offered in the university are comprehended in four departments, each department being under the administration of a distinct faculty of instruction: Philosophy and the arts, theology, medicine, and law. Under the first-named department are included two separately organized sections in which instruction for undergraduates is provided, viz. the academical department and the Sheffield Scientific School ”

“ Until the establishment of the Johns Hopkins University in 1876, Harvard and Yale were our chief centers of scientific research and productive scholarship. We are losing one after the other the men who gave distinction to these universities. Yale has mourned the death of Dana, Loomis, Newton, Gibbs, Marsh and Johnson, and now in the death of William Henry Brewer one of the few remaining links with the past is severed. He belonged to a generation and to a type of university professor which scarcely survive. ”

“ In 1892 Yale University opened the courses of the post-graduate department, with the degree of Ph. D. to women.
In 1893, by an Act of the Legislature, the State Agricultural School, at Storrs, admitted women to its full course.
In the public schools there are 387 men and 3,692 women teachers. The average monthly salary of the men is $89.87; of the women, $43.61.
The State Federation of Women's Clubs was organized in 1897 and under its auspices traveling libraries have been formed for rural schools, free kindergartens supported, etc. ”

“ After attending Boston grammar school and the academy at Andover, he entered Yale College in October 1823. Although he did not specially distinguish himself as a student, university life had considerable influence in the development of his character, and furnished him with much of his literary material. Immediately after leaving Yale he published in 1827 a volume of poetical Sketches, which attracted some attention, although the critics found in his verses more to blame than to praise. ”

“ The world's great men have not commonly been great scholars, nor its great scholars great men.—O.W. Holmes.
See also Harvard university; Scholarship.
COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES
The college is a coy maid—
She has a habit quaint
Of making eyes at millionaires
And winking at the taint.
—Judge.
"What is a 'faculty'?"
"A 'faculty' is a body of men surrounded by red tape."—Cornell Widow.
Yale University is to have a ton of fossils. Whether for the faculty or for the museums is not announced.—The Atlanta Journal. ”

“ By 1701 Harvard had put forth a vigorous offshoot, Yale College at New Haven, the settlers of New Haven and Connecticut plantations having increased sufficiently to need a college at their own doors. A printing-press was set up at Cambridge in 1639, which was under the oversight of the university authorities, and afterward of licensers appointed by the civil power. ”

“ The athletic grounds of the university, known as Yale Field, are open to the students of all departments. The grounds, consisting of some 30 acres about a mile from the campus, were purchased in 1882, and when turned over to the corporation in 1902 represented an original outlay of $53,000 secured by subscriptions, to which for maintenance and improvements a sum of nearly $100,000 has been added, the greater part of which has come from the athletic associations in gate receipts. ”

“ Our purpose, on the contrary, is to maintain for every American child an open ladder through elementary school, secondary school and college to the university; and to that purpose a six-year period of elementary education is much better adapted—a plan which many of our school systems have adopted within the last decade. We need better vocational education in this country and better systems of vocational guidance; but we are becoming clear that these must not be of the German sort, that compel a choice before the teens.
Education in a democracy must be education for democracy ”

“ The holder of the Winchester Fellowship is entitled to two years' residence and study abroad.
The earliest professional school organized at Yale was the Medical School. Four professors in medicine were appointed in 1813, and degrees were given the following year. ”

“ But it is just that that a university should stand for: it is the production of great minds, trained in clear, broad ways of thinking, self-sufficient, capable of escaping from the trammels of the every-day. ”

“ The library, the Peabody Museum of Natural History, and the observatory are organized independently of the special departments, and are designed to contribute in their special spheres to the instruction and advancement of the whole institution. A candidate for the degree of B.A. must complete courses aggregating sixty hours per week through a year. A student is enrolled in the freshman class until he has completed at least twelve hours of work. ”

“ Under President Theodore D. Woolsey (q.v.) , 1840-71, the corps of instructors was greatly enlarged, and the standard of scholarship raised; the Scientific School was established, and the foundation laid for the School of Graduate Instruction; the professional schools were reorganized and the School of Fine Arts was founded. During President Woolsey's twenty-five years of service the nundjcr of students increased to 809. Dr. Woolsey proposed the plan, which became effective in 1872, by which six graduates of the college took the place of the State Senators in the corporation. ”

“ But they sought and obtained a thoroughgoing student of the subject, a man of intellectual force and independence, who would give character to the position, and reflect honor upon the college, by his own original contributions to the science committed to his care. That among the considerable number of men who compose the governing body of Yale College—a majority of them clergymen, as we are told there—would have been some more narrow-minded than others, who would be disposed to interfere with the Professor's work and hamper his teaching, was perhaps inevitable ”

“ In the last week a great change took place in the sentiment of the university—the hoping against hope that often arrives with the intensity of combat. At this time Harvard and Yale were still reluctantly estranged, due to a purely hypothetical question as to which side had begun a certain historic slaughter, and the big game of the season was with Princeton, which, under the leadership of Garry Cockerell, Dink's first captain at Lawrenceville, had established a record of unusual power and brilliancy. ”