YALE ALUMNI WH LY
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YALE ALUMNI WEEKLY
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ADVISORY BOARD.
H. C, Roprnson, ’53. J. R., SHEFFIELD, 87.
W. W.Sxrippy, 65S. J. A. HARTWELL, 895.
C. P. Linpsitry, 75S. L.S, WELCH, ’89.
W. Camp, ’80. E. Van INGEN, ’91 Ss.
W.G. Daaaerr, ’80. P. Jay, 792.
EDITOR.
Lewis 8. WELOH, ’89.
ASSOCIATE EDITOR.
WALTER Camp, ’80.
ASSISTANT EDITOR,
EK. J. THOMPSON, Sp.
NEWS EDITOR.
FRED. M, DAVIES, 99.
PRESTON KuMLER, 1900, Athletic Department.
Davip D. Tenney, 1900, Special.
Entered as second class matter at New Haven P. O.
NEW HAVEN, CONN., FEB. 17, 1898.
Please sign with your full name all
your communications. THE WEEKLY can
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a
SECRETARY’S NOTICE.
The WEEKLY again desires to urge
upon the Secretaries of class and alumni
associations the necessity of sending to
this office all news of the organizations
which they may represent. Our aim
is to print as news and for the pre-
servation of complete record the doings
of the individual, and the organized
bodies of Yale graduates. This is im-
possible without the codperation of the
secretaries. It is gratifying to see that
the numbers of those who do coéperate
is on the increase, but the opportunity
for an improvement is great.
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Ay eS
THE NEW YORK DINNER.
It is not necessary to offer any
apology for the length of report of the
New York dinner, and none will be
made, for, considering the speakers
and the character of the speeches, it is
doubtful if any better material could be
obtained, even after long and diligent
search. The spirit of good fellowship
that brings together hundreds of grad-
uates in such a meeting covering a
range of three score years, is perhaps
not entirely confined to Yale men, but
it would seem to bear its best fruit
among them.
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~~
AN OBVIOUS BLUNDER,
The report of the speech of Profes-
sor A. T. Hadley at the New York
dinner Monday night, which was sent
out over the country by the press as-
sociations, contains a serious blunder
which, however, could not have failed
to show on its face that there was a
mis-quotation. It was nevertheless a
somewhat puzzling statement that
“Yale’s annual income was $600,000, con-
trasted against Harvard’s comparatively
insignificant income of $12,000.” What
Prof. Hadley did say is correctly
quoted in the course of his speech
which is printed in another column.
As reported, there was a discrepancy
of something over a million in Har-
vard’s actual income.
It would be safe to hazard an opinion
at least that the reporter was not
closely acquainted with the financial af-
fairs of either of these Universities.
pagation of the French language.
VACATION SCHOOL.
European Establishments for the
Study of French Languages.
[William Henry Bishop in Nation. ]
“Vacation schools for French are of
late being founded in considerable num-
ber in Europe. They are for the bene-
fit of foreigners, and the natives are de-
barred from attending them. I had oc-
casion to visit most of these schools the
past Summer, and printed reports from »
several have now come in. The courses
given are usually divided into two
series; as, at Paris, one includes the
month of July and the second the
month of August, and at Geneva one
extends from the 17th of July to
the 30th of August, and a shorter one
follows from October ist to the 2ist.
Each is compiete in itself; they mean
to cover about the same ground, but at
the same time the texts and other mat-
ters are not duplicated, so that any one
might profitably follow both. I could
not help being favorably impressed with
the doings at all of these schools alike.
Too much should not be expected from
so brief a period of study, but all of
them present an excellent opportunity
to find out what the language is in its
real dignity and importance, in its tradi-
tions and its literary development, as
contrasted with the light smattering—
to which no disparagement, as far as
it goes—usually got from the ordinary
French teacher abroad.
“Tt is now the requirement in the pro-
gressive European countries, as it will
perhaps become the requirement some
time with us, that the instructor in a
modern language shall be able to con-
duct a recitation in the language itself.
Some of those in attendance at Paris,
during the last Summer, were Russian
and Bulgarian teachers sent at the ex-
pense of their own governments The
majority seemed to be connected with
education; the college principal from
Copenhagen would elbow the English
governess from Allahabad; but there
were also army offiecrs, doctors, edi-
tors, and some for business men.
THE ALLIANCE FRANCAISE.
“The vacation school at Paris, under
the auspices of the Alliance Francaise,
though founded only in 1894, has be-
come the most important of all, as is
natural enough, considering the advan-
tages of the great metropolis. The
Alliance Francaise is a patriotic asso-
ciation—with many distinguished per-
sons in its management, and branches
in all parts of the world—for the pro-
“The exercises. were held in the
bright new edifice of the Ecole Colon-
iale, which is on the quiet Avenue de
Observatoire, close by the Luxem-
bourg gardens. The cheery look of the
building was a pleasant augury that was
not belied by the event; from the first
a very cordial and considerate spirit,
which is by no means the invariable
rule at Paris,-was manifested towards
the large group of strangers. They
represented every sort of nationality:
Russians, Danes, Hollanders, Italians,
Bulgarians, Czechs, were all ‘there.
The bare list shows the cosmopolitan
character of the assemblage, and its
possibilities for good. Germans. were
largely in the majority, as I found to
be the case in all these schools. They
were 216 out of the 370. There were
54 English and 44 Americans; the Rus-
sians followed next in order.
“A busy round of lectures began, at
the rate of about three a day, with con-
versation classes by small groups of
persons, in the evening, and also
(thrown in, during the day). visits, un-
der a competent .conductor, to the
monuments and other art works of
Paris. The French language of the
seventeenth century and of the nine-
teenth were treated of, Gallicisms and
popular speech; classic literature, and
contemporary literature; Lamartine, by
himself; the dramatic theories of Dide-
rot; comedy after Moliére; the Roman-
tic drama. There were besides recita-
tions- in diction and dramatic reading
and in elocution and pronunciation.
The series is divided into two courses,
elementary and advanced, according to
the ability of the student, and there is
also a common course, open to all alike,
treating of the institutions of France,
and of art. At the end of the term,
examinations were held and diplomas
issued. As to the matter of expense,
it is moderate: the whole two hundred
life income.
exercises, of all sorts, can be subscribed
for for the sum of 150 francs, or twenty-
five tickets can be taken for 25 francs
—this is required as a minimum—and,
after that, such single tickets as may be
desired. ©
PROF. BRUNOT LECTURES.
“Prof. Brunot of the University, au-
thor of an historical grammar of the
language, was the lecturer best known
among scholars. He is spoken of, too,
as the soul of this work, on account of
his great interest in it from the first. He
gave us his regular product in all the
minute details, so that the result was
as if one had had a month’s section or
supply of what he would have taken
a year or more to develop-at the Sor-
bonne. René Doumic of the Lycée
Stanislas, but also the distinguished
literary critic of the Revue des Deux
Mondes, was the most interesting of the
lecturers. The amphitheatre was large
—for the purpose in view—and the front
seats were much in demand, but he was
the one who could always be heard
without difficulty. It is gratifying to
know this, as he is coming here in the
Spring to lecture at some of our uni-
versities, following in the footsteps of
Brunetiére, last year. He seems to
have formed himself upon Brunetiére in
many ways, but his sentences are much
shorter than Brunetiére’s, and hence
easier to follow. He has also much
humor. He dwelt on the need of
actually being in a foreign country and
knowing it, in order to try to under-
stand its literature. All the speakers
were not as entertaining as M. Doumic;-
some of them mumbled under their
breath, and some of them were dull.
“The conversation classes were really
very well done. I could not but admire
the polite ingenuity with which the
bright young professor, in one of those
sections, combatted the reluctance (or
the native slowness) of some of his
auditors in being led into talk. Some
of them had had very little previous
practice in speaking. ‘And, you, mon-
sieur, he would say, extending a
courteously appealing hand towards,
for instance, the dark South American,
‘will you tell us something about the
system of suffrage in your country?’
‘And you, mademoiselle,’ again, to the
blonde Swedish girl, whose pleasant
high color at once became more rosy
still with a flush of modesty, “have you
been to the theatre sometimes in
Paris?’ The theatre was always a re-
source; Richepin’s play ‘Le Chemineau’
was on at the time at the Odéon, and
nearly everybody had seen it. He
would have the plot of it narrated and
commented upon. Again, Zola, what
with the differing moral ideas from so
many parts of the globe, proved a
source of such lively discussion that all
self-consciousness was, for the time be-
ing, thrown off.
FINAL EXAMINATIONS.
“The final examinations consisted of
the writing of a dissertation, in French,
on some subject based upon the work
gone over. One of those for the
superior course was: ‘What was the end
aimed at by Moliére in writing “Tar-
tuffe’?’? One of those for the elementary
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Dean.
course: ‘An interview between the
King and a critic belonging to the clas-
sic school, who wished him to forbid
the representation of Victor Hugo’s
plays.’ I note that but one American
passed the examination for a diploma,
while sixteen diplomas were awarded to
the English; but I think this merely
shows that the Americans have not yet
begun to enter for the examinations;
they content themselves, for the present,
with the incidental improvement.
A GRENOBLE SCHOOL.
“At Grenoble they are planning a
school of the same kind. They would
be glad to draw foreign students to
their University. This small city, of
60,000 inhabitants, will most likely have
a program of studies arranged for the
coming season, and then it should pre-
sent great advantages. My attention
was first called to it by the statement
of Michael Bréal, the distinguished
philologist of the Collége de France,
that, if he had his life to live over
again, ‘he would be a student nowhere
but at Grenoble, within sight of the
Alps, beside the -swift water of the
Isére.’ I spent some three weeks there,
and came to know it quite well.
“From there I went on to Geneva.
I found some two hundred and twenty
members in the Summer course, with
every appearance of being actively in-
terested. The greater number were
still Germans. There were but two
from England—more exactly, Scotland
—and none from America, though there
have been Americans in former years.
The fees are a little lower that in
France—that is, forty francs for six
weeks, at the rate of eleven lessons a
week.
“The studious audience, in the spaci-
ous halls, had a rather more hard-work-
ing air than that at Paris; there were
many elderly persons present—one
grave, turbaned, Oriental among them—
and the shirt-waists and sailor hats
might have been a trifle less trim than
at Paris. The instructors, chiefly from
the government lycées, were yotng,
energetic and very competent in their
subjects. Prof. Thudicum had in con-
nection with his class in Phonetics a
successful Section de Chant, in which
the popular ballads of Switzerland were
sung; singing being an excellent pro-
moter of accurate pronunciation. Prof.
Bouvier, the founder and director, was
admirable. Still young, of a fine and
thoughtful appearance, a man of ideas
and an excellent speaker, he had, too,
that obligingness of manner, combined
with force and efficiency in manage-
ment, that constitute the highest type
of deportment for the civilized man.
Saturdays were kept free for excursions,
and surely there was no lack of excur-
sions, when you could go one day, for
instance, to see Voltaire’s fine chateau
-at Ferney, and another down the lake
to Madame de Staél’s charming home
at Coppet.
“Further along on the lake, ai
Lausanne, housed in the new chemical
laboratory of the quaint University,
high on the very steep hill, is another
of the vacation schools. And _ still
another is at Neuchatel, on the lake of
the same name, the town where Agassiz
was once professor.”