with exerciSes which, together with
the attendance of distinguished schol-
ars, made the event an occasion of im-
portance in the history of the Univer-
sity.
The first use made of the library
of the Classical Club was on Friday af-
ternoon for the thirteenth meeting of
the Managing Committee of the
American School of .ClasSical Studies
at Athens. This meeting was held a
month or more earlier than usual for
the sake of a personal introduction to
Professor Dr. Doerpfeld, first secre-
tary of the German Institute in
Athens, to whom the School is under
deep obligations, since the opportunity
of attending his lectures in the pres-
ence of the monuments in Athens, in
Peloponnesus, and on the Greek isl-
ands, is one of the highest privileges
of the students of our Schools. This
meeting was well attended. In the
history of the committee, only once has
a larger number of its members been
present.
At 4 o’clock on Friday afternoon in
A. Osborn, ProfeSsor Doerpfeld lect-
ured on “Recent Excavations in
Greece,” to the great pleasure of as
large an audience as could be seated
in that room.
THE EXERCISES IN BATTELL CHAPEL,
The audience which was gathered
for the exercises in the evening at
Battell Chapel was an unusual one.
1t contained distinguished representa-
tives of classical and other branches
of education from all parts of the
country. The significance of placing
in such a_ distinguished position of
the College grounds the rooms of this
department of the College instruction
and University research, which was
frequently emphasized during the eve-
ning, made the occasion seem all the
more interesting as indicating the po-
sition of this University towards a
Classical education, and emphasizing
its loyalty to the system of liberal
education which refuses to exclude the
study of the languages and civiliza-
tion of ancient Greece and Rome.
PROFESSOR PECK’S ADDRESS.
In opening the exercises of the eve-
ning, Professor Tracy Peck, of Yale,
Said:
Ladies and Gentlemen:—The Classi-
cal Club of Yale University, whose at-
tractive and commodious rooms are to
be formally opened after these public
exercises, has had, with some change
of name, an honorable existence for
more than a generation.
Early in the Civil War, as far as
the history was retraced, certain offi-
cers of the College who were special-
ly occupied with the teach:ng
of ancient and . modern lan-
‘guages, began to meet to read papers
and discuss questions in which they
were commonly interested. fProfes-
sors James Hadley and Wm. Dwight
Whitney were in the prime of their
extraordinary powers, and probably
to them more than to all others the
formation and high character of the
association were due, though they had
the encouragement and co-operation
of President Woolsey and. Professors
Thacher and Packard, to mention only
those who have passed away.
These conferences were very infor-
mal, held usually at intervals of two
or three weeks, sometimes at the home
of a member, and sometimes in a reci-
tation room. But at those simple
gatherings several papers have been
presented either in germ or in their
final form, which have distinctly ex-
tended the domains of philological
knowledge and have become the com-
mon property of scholarship. As the
teaching force of the College increased
and there was greater specialization
in study, there were natural offshoots
from the original society which to-
day regards with nothing of jealous
rivalry, but with something akin to
parental pride, the Modern Language
Club, the English Club and the Sem-
etic Club. .
After the various vicissitudes which
naturally befall such an association, it
was reorganized four years ago on its
present basis. Membership, though
not thus limited, is mainly made up of
the teachers and graduate students in
Classical Philology. Its meetings are
on Saturday evenings throughout the
Academic year. A part of each meet-
ing is usually devoted to the reading
YALE ALU MENT
of large quantities of Greek and Latin
literature; the other part to the pres-
entation of original works, discussions,
reports, reviews, etc. Through the
liberality of several friends a good
working library is now at the dis-
posal of the Club’s members, which
library it is hoped may be largely in-
creased in the near future.
The existence of a Classical Club of
such age and energy presupposes @
generous place for the Classics in the
Yale scheme of education. How gen-
erous that place is, he who is interest-
ed can learn from a map or along a
genealogical tree, from the College
catalogue from 1822 to the
year. Previous to the exact record of
these 74 years we have the testimony
of written documents, quite definite
traditions and the echoes of still
earlier traditions.
WHEN CLASSICS WERE STRONG.
Manuscript laws of 1720 state that,
“In the first year after admission, on
the four first days of the week, all
students shall be exercised in the
Greek and Hebrew tongues only. They
shall spend the second year in logic,
with the exercise of themselves in the
tongues; the third year principally in
physics. The fourth year in meta-
physics and mathematics, also carry-
ing on the former studies.
Another law prescribes that ‘All
students shall recite, on Saturday
evening, the Assembly’s Shorter Cate-
chism in Latin.’ Still further that
“No scholar shall use the English
tongue in the College with his fellow
scholars, unless he be called to a pub-
lic exercise proper to be attended in
the English tongue, but scholars in
their chambers and when they are to-
gether, shall talk Latin,’’ and again,
‘All undergraduates, except Fresh-
men, shall turn some part of the New
Testament out of the English or Latin
into Greek at evening at the time of
recitation before they begin to recite
the original tongues.”’
Laws of 1745 order that in the first
year students “Shall principally study
the tongues and logic, and shall in
some measure pursue the study of the
tongues the next two years.” “On Fri-
day each undergraduate about six at” ~~
a time, shail declaim in the Hall in
Latin, Greek or Hebrew, and in no
other language without special leave.”
SCIENCE WORKING IN.
As early as 1766 we have evidence
that students, at their admission to
Yale, ‘Are able well to construe and
parse Tully’s Orations, Virgil and the
Greek testament and understand the
rules of common arithmetic.’ ‘Till the
close of the last century the Latin au-
thors studied in Yale were chiefiy Vir-
gil, Horace and Cicero de Oratore.
Nor was any Greek regularly taught
except the Greek Testament till the
present century was well started.
The use of Latin as the language
of the College for making out excuses
for the syllogistic disputes and for
much of the intercourse between offi-
cers and students, had become nearly
obsolete just about a century ago.
THE FIRST FIGHT. ;
it is interesting to know that the
prominence given to the ancient lan-
guages at Yale has not been an inert
transmission from generation to gen-
eration, but has been seriously chal-
lenged. Here as elsewhere the friends
and champions of the classics have
had to closely examine their creden-
tials and justify their faith and prac-
tice.
The President and Fellows in Sep-
tember, 1827, appointed a commission
of the Goveraor of the State, the Pres-
ident of the College, and three other
persons, “to inquire into the expedi-
ency of so altering the regular course
of instruction as to leave out of said
course the study of the dead lan-
guages, substituting other studies
therefore, and either requiring a com-
petent knowledge of said languages as
a condition of admittance into the Col-
lege, or providing instruction in the
same for such as shall choose to study
them after admittance.
This committee requested the Fac-
ulty to consider the question in all its
bearings. The Faculty prepared two
reports, one on the Plan of Education
in the College and the other on the
present.
-nificent structure,
ye a ee a
particular question under considera-
tion. After receiving these reports
the Corporation resolved that it would
be unwise and even dangerous to make
the radical changes suggested. This
document was evidently the result of
a thorough study of the subject in ail
its bearings, is judicial in tone, of per-
manent value, and we of to-day, as
the same criticisms arise, can look
back to it as to a kind of charter with
unaffected pride.
What the future of classical study
is to be no one is wise enough to
know. There seem. to be but few
finalities in education, and with the
Steady multiplication of the proper
Objects of study, we may fairly an-
ticipate some readjustment of rival
Studies, some modification in the rela-
tive position and ends and methods of
particular branches. But for one, I
Cannot conceive of a wise scheme of
liberal and humanizing education
from which shall be excluded the lan-
fuages and literatures and life of an-
cient Greece and Rome, nor of a state
of civilization which can with safety:
be indifferent to the ideals and les-
sons that come to us from these great
Civilizations of the vast.
We of the Classical Club, as we re-
ceive the rich heritage from the past
and face the problems of to-day and
to-morrow, may well be sobered and
quickened into a keener sense of our
individual and associate responsibility,
and on this occasion highly resolve to
transmit to our successors, like the
runners in the ancient race, our
torches held ever well aloft and bright-
ly burning.
The building in which the club is to
have its home is the munificent gift of
William Walter Phelps, one of the
most distinguished and versatile and
loyal sons of Yale. It forms the state-
ly gateway to the College grounds; it
-towers above all the other buildings;
it dominates the entire neighborhood.
That the regular work of the Classi-
cal Department should be done in a
structure so placed is indeed an acci-
dent, but probably no one will be-
grudge us the reflections naturally
‘suggested by the situation.
THE MOTTO OF THE UNIVERSITY.
«lux et Veritas is. the simple but
comprehensive inscription on the mag-
and the profound-
ly impressive significance of these
words it is hoped may be a summons
and an inspiration to all who shall
share the privilege and responsibilities
of Phelps Hall.
We had hoped that the President:
of the University would on this oc-
casion ‘pay a fitting tribute to the gen-
erous provisions of Mr. Phelps, and
also speak with the authority of his
position of the relation of the Classi-
cal Club and of classical studies to
the scheme of the University, but his
absence in Europe deprives this fes-
tivity of that desired element. We
have asked one of our colleagues to
say a few words, as representative of
the University, especially of its scien-
tific side. Beginning his undergraduate
course in the Academic Department
and completing it in the Sheffield
Scientific School, and having devoted
most of his life to natural science, he
is peculiarly qualified to speak to us
intelligently and without prejudice. I
have the pleasure of introducing Hen-
ry S. Williams, Professor of Geology.’’
PROFESSOR WILLIAMS HEARD.
Professor Henry S. Williams, of the
Chair of Geology, successor to -the
late Professor James Dana, was re-
ceived with applause. His remarks,
emphasizing from the standpoint of a
scientific man the inestimable value
of an education in ‘the Classics, were
warmly received, He spoke as follows:
Members of the Classical Club, La-
dies and Gentlemen:—It gives me
great pleasure, as a representative of
the Scientific side of the University, to
rejoice with you and congratulate the
Classical Department upon the glor-
ious triumph which we are here to
celebrate. ;
Although Yale College has always
insisted that the classics constitute
an essential wart in the foundation of
a liberal education, she has also been
foremost among American institutions
of learning in promoting science as
another factor, and in making provis-
ions for the thoreveh snecial study of
\
~The
sciences in the University. Also her
sreatest scientific men have been as
hearty advocates of the classical
standard of education, as they have
been honest investigators of science
for its own sake.
In the year 1799 it was the first
President Dwight who called aside
Benjamin Silliman, a graduate of the
class of 1796, and bade him abandon
a profitable career as lawyer and be-
come a teacher of science in Yale Col-
lege. And a half century later it was
the Classical Yale College which or-
ganized a Scientific School, the first
to be associated with an American
college.
Classics and science have thus work-
ed hand in hand in the past, and the
future glory of Yale College will in a
large measure depend upon the faith-
fulness with which they continue to
work together, each supplying the
part which the other lacks in build-
ing the foundations of a perfect edu-
cation.
THE ATTEMPT TO DIVORCE.
‘The attempt to divorce these two
is not new. In the year 1827, sixty-
nine years ago, the outside clamor
against the classics became so urgent
thet the President and Fellows of
Yale College deliberately appointed a
committee to consider the expediency
of abolishing from the curriculum the
dead languages and supplying their
places with some other subjects. They
wisely submitted the proposition to
the Faculty. The answer given by the
Faculty was not only decisive but so
full and clear and conclusive that the
project was abandened and the “Re-
port on a Course of Liberal Educa-
tion” which they prepared has con-
stituted the declaration of principles
upon which the present reputation and
glory of Yale College has been found-
ed.
In that Faculty, Silliman and Olm-
gtead were members with Day and
Kingsley and Goodrich, and it was
Silliman who preserved this scientific
definition of a liberal education in the
American Journal of Science.
THE PRINCIPLES.
The.. fundamental principles set
forth were that the object of a college
training is to lay the foundation of a
superior education, that Literature
and Science were both deemed to be
essential elements in that foundation
and the classical studies a corner
stone; and the object of a curriculum
was to maintain such a proportion be-
tween the several branches of Liter-
ature and Science as to form in the
student a proper balance of character.
“The points of criticism were the
same then as they are to-day, and each
one was clearly stated, calmly con-
sidered and shown to be invalid in the
report.
THE OLD OBJECTIONS.
impractical nature of _ the
classics, the special merits of modern
languages, the varying tastes of stu-
dents and the attraction to the novy-
elties of scientific discovery, the haste
to get at special professional studies,
the demand for greater election, the
work for lectures in place of the driil-
ing of the class-room, all these appear
to have been urged aS arguments for
the abandonment of the dead lan-
guages. The report gave the _yrea-
sons for holding to that which had
been found useful in the past and
which has proven by experience to
have lost none of its intrinsic value.
THE RESULTS OF THAT POLICY,
One of the proofs of the wisdom of
the policy confirmed by the Faculty
of 1827 is shown in the future success
and popularity of the Yale College
founded on that policy. Her students
then were 325, to-day they are 1,252,
with a Freshman class of 352, and the
largest number of students in a classi-
cal institution, I believe, anywhere in
this country, and probably in the
world, pursuing a uniform curriculum
in a body.
‘“‘“And this advance has been made
in the face of the establishment of
hundreds of colleges, where an educa-
tion can be attained and a degree ac-
quired without either Greek or Latin.
‘Again the history of the Scientific
School testifies to the wisdom of that
