THE atmosphere of a university is the subtle creation of its history, traditions, and surroundings, and is an element as vital as its more tangible properties. If, as Syrus says, "Discipulus est priori posterior dies," antiquity is a factor in its influence which neither wealth nor equipment nor even a high order of instruction can supersede. If we wish to take a true estimate of the genius of the institution, we must consider the character of the men who at tended its birth and impressed themselves upon its youth, the moulding force of the events through which it has passed, and the ideals toward which it has always striven. learned languages should be taught, a pub- Their zeal in the cause of education was not local. In the fifth year after their landing, at the request of the Commissioners of the United Colonies of New England, they took up a contribution of corn for the support of the College which had already been established in Massachusetts, and continued it for several years. A cash gift of £40 is also gratefully acknowledged by the historian of Harvard, received from Governor Eaton of New Haven, to assist in the erection of the requisite buildings in Cambridge; and, "for the encouragement of such persons as showed a disposition to bring up their children in learning," money was voted repeatedly from the public treasury "to maintain hopeful youth at Harvard College." But in the closing years of the seventeenth century exhausting Indian wars, the destruction of chartered rights, to satisfy the greed of the needy favorites of Charles II., Copyright, 1897, by Charles Scribner's Sons. All rights reserved. The foundations of Yale University were laid by John Davenport, the leader of the colony planted at New Haven in 1638. To establish it his labors were for many years persistent and unwearying, and although he was not to see the fruition of his efforts, the tradition of them led at last to the consummation of his original design. The colonists who made up his company were men of superior wealth, culture, and, knowledge of affairs; they recognized in no way dependence upon Royal favor. Under their leader they proposed to found an independent State which should acknowledge allegiance only to God. Their scheme of government included provision for universal education, schools where the Hillhouse Avenue and the Cloister, and the Revolution accomplished by Sir Edmund Andros, scarcely tended to the promotion of the higher education. The Colonists were known to the Crown as the friends of Cromwell, and although they had declined his invitation to return when he became Lord Protector, it was notorious that they were in sympathy with his views, and their protection of the regicides, Goffe, Whalley, and Dixwell, who were concealed in Davenport's house and in the Judges' Cave at West Rock, had brought down upon them the Royal dis pleasure. Instead of an independent community supported by all the institutions which can make it glorious, the colony had been brought into subjection to Connecticut, and the college, whose motto, "Lux et Veritas," was to have illuminated the world, had not risen above the grade of a grammar school. But the love of learning had been deeply planted in the hearts of the people of New Haven: of the graduates of Harvard from its foundation in 1636 to 1700 as many as one in thirty were from the distant town of New Haven, whose population did not In 1700, William and Mary the foundation of a college in this colony.'" The framers of its charter, to avoid Royal jealousy, gave it the name of the Collegiate School, "that it might better stand wind and weather," and to avoid local dissensions it was at first established at Saybrook as a central position. The times, however, were unpropiti MONUMENT TO THE REGICIDE Center: ous; within two months of the entry of its first student, Ja cob Hemingway, the War of the Spanish Succession began, and the American colonists were again involved in a French and Indian war. There was an empty treasury and there were no powerful friends. Strong enemies were intriguing to deprive the colony of its charter; the whole able-bodied popula tion was on the frontier from the eastern border of Connecticut to the St. Lawrence. Amid these dangers and difficulties the trustees kept the college alive. In estimating the obligation due them the history of those trying years should never be forgotten. All that those eleven ministers had to cheer them as they rode slowly on horseback through the woods to their stated meetings in Saybrook were their faith in God, and the echoes of the Protestant cannon of Marlborough and Prince Eugene, which came to them over the water from Blenheim and Malplaquet. In 1717, after a lapse of eighty years, the original plans of the founders of the colony were fulfilled in the removal of the college from Saybrook to its present location, where it celebrated its memorable commencement in its first building, 170 feet long and 22 feet wide, known as Yale College, whose "architectonic part" had been designed by Governor Saltonstall. At this time it was endowed by Elihu Yale "with a liberal and bountiful donation," and received his name, which has thus been perpetuated in all times and in all lands; a tribute to high and unselfish action, justifying the inscription upon his portrait : Dum mens grata manet nomen laudesque Cantabunt soboles unanimique Yalenses Patres. They were strong and earnest men, those old Presidents, who successively assumed the direction and development of the nursling which was eventually to become the Alma Mater of so many thousands of American youth. They were prominent figures in the stern theological controversies of the times, served as fighting chaplains in the colonial armies, cultivated polite learning. when not in service, read Hebrew, wrote books, paid tribute to the muses and |