Votume VI. No. 24,
NEW HAVEN, CONN., THURSDAY, MARCH 25,
AGAINST HIGHER TARIFF.
Yale’s Earnest Petition— Losses Under
Proposed Bill.
A protest against the Dingley Tariff
bill has been sent to the House of
Representatives, signed by President
Dwight and fifty or sixty other mem-
bers of the University Faculty, sub-
mitting considerations why books,
philosophical appara'tus, etc., should
not be removed from the free list of
imports. It is considered by the Uni-
versity Faculty that the passage of the
Dingley Tariff bill would cause consid-.
erable additional expenditure to the va-
rious departments of the University. It
has been possible to obtain approximate
figures in the matter from the Aca-
demic and Scientiiic Department.
In speaking of the losses to the Uni-
versity, that would result from the
passing of the proposed Dingley biil,
Prof. Van Name of the University L!-
brary said that last year books were
imported which under toese regulations
would have been dutliabie to tne
amount ot $4,000. He added that every
year the tarlm in consequence of this
pill would amount to at least $2,500.
in regard to the losses to the Scien-
tific Scncol in consequence of the pro-
posed duty on philosophical apparatus,
the following tigures have been ob-
tained from reliable sources. The av-
erage amount ofimported apparatus per
annum to the Biological Department is
$1,800; to the Chemical Department,
$su0, and to the Department of Puysics,
31,000. The tariff on these goods, ac-
cording to the provisions otf this bili,
would amount to $720, $320 and $400 re-~
Spectively. It is also to be expected
that home manufacturers would raise
their price on goods sold the School,
being protected by the Dingley bill,
and the loss in this direction is esti-
mated at $600 per annum. The total in-
crement in the annual running expen-
ses cf the Scientific School would,
therefore, be $2,040, and this amount
would continually increase as the at-
tendance at the School grew larzer,
and more apparatus became necessary
to furnish a full equipment.
THE PROTEST,
To the House of Representatives of the
United States:
The undersigned, the President and
members of the several faculties of
Yale University, respectfully submit
to your honorable body the following
considerations against the proposed re-
moval from the free list of books, phil-
osophical apparatus, etc., specially im-
ported for the use of colleges, public
libraries, and other incorporated in-
stitutions (paragraphs 413, 585):
(1.) Such action would be at variance
with the uniform policy of the govern~
ment in the past. Under every tariff
act, from 1789 to 1894, books for such
use have been admitted free. The same
is true of philosophical apparatus, with
a single exception. A small duty was
imposed in 1864, during the stress of
war, and removed in the first general
revision after its close. There would
be, we submit, just ground for surprise,
were this time-honored policy to be
reversed now, at a time when our in-
dustries, already revolutionized by the
recent discoveries and new applications
of science, must look to her aid for
further development.
(2.) The government is now paying to
the colleges for agriculture and in the
mechanic arts, established in the sev-
eral states under the land grants of
1862, annuities which are to be perpet-
ual and amount in the aggregate to
$1,000,000 a year. We find it impossi-
ble to reconcile with this praiseworthy
patronage of higher education the in-
direct tax, which the proposed legisla-
tion would impose both on the institu-
tions of the government’s own creation
and those established by the free gifts
of generous friends of learning. .
(3.) Upon our free public libraries, al-
ready among the most valuable of our
educational agencies; and rapidly grow-
ing in numbers and usefulness, the in-
creased cost of necessary books would
be a serious burden. It would abridge
to that extent their capacity to serve
the public.
(4.) Within the present generation
our public libraries have received, in
gifts for buildings and endowments,
not less than $25,000,000—in the State of
Massachusetts alone $6,000,000. Still
larger have been the gifts to our in-
stitutions of higher education. Any-
thing which should tend to check the
flow and dry up the sources of these
gifts would bring serious loss to the
country, which is the common benefici-
ary of these most beneficent charities.
We are not without apprehension that
the proposed legislation would have
this effect.
(5.) Any possible benefit which could
accrue to the Treasury from the duties
on books, ete., now exempted, would,
in the judgment of your petitioners, be
fas outweighed by the injury inflicted
on the cause of education.
For these reasons we respectfully ask
that the provision contained in para-
graphs 413 and 585 of the present law
may be left undisturbed.
—_—_—_++4—_____
Ready for the Harvard Debate.
The annual Yale-Harvard debate will
be held at Sanders’ Theater, Com-
bridge, on Friday evening, March 26.
The question is: “Resolved, That the
United States should adopt definitely
the single gold standard and should
decline to enter a bimetallic league,
even if Great Birtain, France and Ger-
many shrould be wiling to enter such a
league.’ Harvard has the affirmative
side of the question and Yale the nega-
tive. Harvard will be represented by
G. H. Dorr, 97; F. Dobyns, ’98, and 8.
R. Wrightington, 97, and Yale by C. H.
Studinski, “87; -C. U. Clark, °97, ama Cc.
S. Macfarland, ’°97 T. S. The alternate
for Harvard is W. H. Conroy, Jr., ’99,
and for Yale H. H. Hume, ’97, and F. P.
Garvan, 97. Governor Roger Wolcott
will be the presiding officer, and the
- judges will be Professor D. R. Dewey,
of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech-
nology; Professor F. H. Giddings, of
Columbia University, and Judge H. A.
Aldrich, of the United States Court.
The Yale speakers will leave for Bos-
ton on the 2:33 train Thursday, and will
stop at Young’s Hote! in that city.
They will be accompanied by a small
contingent of students. After the de-
bate a dinner will be given in their
honor by the Harvard team, at Young’s,
The Ten Eyck Speakers,
The following speakers have been
chosen to contest for the Ten Eyck
Prize at the annual Junior Exhibition:
Robert Woodrow Archbald, of Lan-
caster, Pa. Subject, ‘““English Admirals
of the Highteenth Century,” Prepara-
tory School, School of the Lackawanna,
Scranton, Pa.
Arthur Douglass Baldwin of Maul,
Hawaii. Subject, “The Opening Up
of South Africa.” Preparatory School,
Hotchkiss.
Samuel Eliot Bassett of Wilton, Conn.
Subject, ‘“Sectionalism in American
Politics.’ Preparatory School, Hop-
kins Grammar School, New Haven,
‘Conn.
Louis Samter Levy of St. Louis, Mo.
Subject, ‘“Sectionalism in American
Politics.” Preparatory School, Smith
Academy, St. Louis, Mo.
Robert Kimball Richardson, of New
Britain, Conn. Subject, “Joan of Are.”
Preparatory School, Hotchkiss.
George Minot Ripley of St. Louis,
Mo. Subject, “Joan of Are.” Prepara~
tory School, Smith Academy, St. Louis,
Mo. .
Edward Clark Streeter of Chicago,
Tll. Subject, “Heinrich Heine.” Pre-
partory School, Harvard School, Chi-
eago, Ill.
Henry Burt Wright, of New Haven,
Conn. Subject, “Armenia.” Prepara-~
tory School, Hillhouse High School,
New Haven, Cont.
189 Ff:
Price Ten Cents.
MEDICAL
EK. D. Chipman,
J. A. Lee. ~
(From advance sheets of The Pot-pourri.
JOURNAL
A. E. Loveland (Bus. Mgr.),
W. G. Reynolds,
EDITORS.
B. F. Corwin (Ch.),
See page five.)
INADEQUATE FORCE.
Mr. Chamberlain Speaks Further of
the English Department.
-'To the Editor of the Yale Alumni
Weekly, Sir:
It is not easy, for me at least, to
understand some of the positions of
Professor Beers. So far as I can make
out, he is not consistent even with him-
self. For example, he begins by saying
that the force that will be in the ser-
vice of the English Department next
year is sufficient to do all the work
needed. He even goes so far as to sug-
gest that both he and Professor Cook
might be transferred to the Sanford
and Lampson chairs, and the present
chairs in English be left vacant. A lit-
tle later he says the rhetorical instruc-
tion is inadequate in amount, and this
is due to the physical work involved in
instructing twelve hundred men. He
further says that every student ought
to write ten or twenty themes yearly.
He would thus require the Department
to examine either twelve thousand or
twenty-four thousand themes annually.
What can he mean by saying this
can all be done by a force of eight men?
Presumably, the work would not be
diminished, if English were not re-
quired in the first two college years,
unless no electives were offered in those
years. Does Professor Beers go this
length? Does he really mean he would
not only have no entrance requirement
in English, but would absolutely deny
Yale students all possibility of instruc-
tion in English until they reach Junior
and Senior years? This certainly seems
to be what he says or means, else how
is he going to release himself and Mr..
‘Cook so that they may fill the Sanford
and Lampson chairs? I will not take
space to comment on such a proposition,
beyond saying, once for all, that it is
monstrous and absurd beyond descrip-
tion; and I do not dare to charge it on
Professor Beers, though he seems to
say and imply it distinctly. Rut eight
“men to twenty-four thousand themes!
Three thousand themes apiece! About
twenty themes a day for every scholas-
tic day of the year! Professor Beers
says the burden of theme-reading is too
much for silver-tongued orators. I say
such theme-reading, in addition to the
other necessary work, is too much for
any eight men alive.
A COMPARISON WITH HARVARD.
Professor Beers seems to demonstrate,
therefore—what any one, it seems to
me, could have seen at a distance—
that the present force is totally unequal
to the work needed to be done, if, as he
correctly observes, “‘the work, to be of
much effect, must be individual.” Look
at Harvard, where five years ago they
had twenty instructors in English and
with difficulty were able to meet the
demands of a body of students not
much, if any, larger than Yale has to-
day. The English Department at Yale
plainly needs more men in every POSssi-
ble view of its wants. Four professors
and at least ten assistants could hardly
do the work. that is urgently needed
to-day.
Again, Professor Beers, though de-
claring that Yale has long ceased to
give instruction in public speaking, a
moment later puts rhetoric, which he
defines as the “art of spoken and writ-
ten expression,” as one of the three
main branches of “instruction in En-
glish.’”’ I suppose of course he means
English at Yale.
There seems to lurk in the several
references made by Professor Beers to
the graduates, a tone of condescension,
a suggestion that we are suffering from
(Continued on sixth page.)