Vout. VIL. No. 22. NEW HAVEN, CONN., THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1898, Price Tren Crnrts,
FROM PROFESSOR BEERS, THE FOUR SENIOR BOARDS.
A Plain Statement in Reply to ‘Iamson. B. M. ; ie 7
Governor hae ed ogre oe Gay. H Age oe I s : ALL Le me we we ee gs ee oe Bil dwtl: ;
[Governor ee eer is found in another BY. Rogers. J.8. BEBEOU: Ch. J.S. Rogers. G. Morris.
To the Editor of YALE ALUMNI WEEKLY:
Sir: I see by the New York Times
of this date, that Mr. Daniel H. Cham-
berlain is now worrying the alumni of
Central and Western Massachusetts, as
he has worried the New York alumni
for several years, about the alleged
neglect of English ‘study at Yale.
When you invited me last year to reply
to some comments of his, upon a letter
of mine in the WEEKLY, I told you that
I did not think any reply was called for.
Perhaps, however, it is time to take
some notice of Mr. Chamberlain’s criti-
cisms. The Massachusetts alumni are
not as much accustomed to his rhetoric
as the New York alumni are, and might
be in danger of taking it seriously.
What I say, I say in defense of the
College, not of myself. Personally I
care nothing about his opinion.
“The head of the English department
at Yale,” says Mr. Chamberlain, ‘‘pro-
claims his opinion that there should
be no requirement whatever of English
in the Yale course.”’ That is right: I
do so proclaim it. I think that the
study of English—and of many other
subjects in the present required course
—should be made elective. “Whether
he would have any requirement of
English for entrance to Yale, I don’t
know,” pursues Mr. Chamberlain. I
will refer him to an article on that sub-
ject which I contributed to the Educa-
tional Review for May, 1892, in which
I gave, at some length, my. reasons
for thinking an entrance requirement
in English unnecessary. I have not
changed my mind on this subject.
“He further thinks,” says Mr. Cham-
berlain, “as do other Yale professors,
that English cannot be taught, as an
ordinary study, at all.” O no, I have
never said or thought anything of the
kind. I have been teaching—or trying
to teach—English, “as an ordinary
study,” for a quarter of a century, with
results, I confess, unsatisfactory to Mr.
Chamberlain, but that I can’t help. It
is not likely that I should undervalue
a pursuit to which my life—whether
successfully or not—has been given.
“The whole Department,” continues
Mr. Chamberlain, “counts but one man,
one only, who is a good teacher of
English, and this man has been under
what I might call disgrace at the hands
of the powers that be, and is under-
stood to be now watched with jealousy
lest he should indeed popularize the
study of English.” I will not comment
upon the discourtesy of this to my col-
leagues and myself, but I am sure that
the gentleman who is made the vic-
tim of this awkward compliment will
be the first to resent the bad taste with
which it is expressed. For obvious
reasons, it would be unbecoming in me
to discuss the question whether the
English teaching at Yale is good or
bad in quality, but I am sure that there
is no disposition to neglect the subject.
The College makes as generous vrovi-
sion for it as it is able to do with the
funds in hand and with the pressure of
other studies for recognition in our
somewhat crowded required curriculum.
Now as to the two “highly endowed
chairs” waiting to be filled. The Lamp-
son endowment has not yet been paid in.
It is in litigation and may be so for a
year or two longer. That the Emily
Sanford chair is still vacant, is not the
fault of the Faculty. “It has been offer-
ed in turn to three gentlemen, any one
of whom would have been an ornament
F. Wickes, Ch.
_ §. R. Kennedy.
M. Delano
E. W. Burlingame.
P. W. Hamill, B. M.
P. G. Hinsdale.
S. W. Jackson. E. T. Howes (S.)
G. B. Rhodes.
R. M. Crosby, Ch. J.H. Scranton.
G. Morris.
D. D. Burrell, B. M.
A. D. Baldwin.
EK. C. Streeter,
F. A. Lord, Ch.
to the College, and has been declined
by all of them. Mr. Chamberlain, who
has been deluging people in New
Haven with private letters on this sub-
ject, was asked by one correspondent
to suggest a candidate. He nominated
his own brother, the Rev. Leander
Chamberlain, and Col. Homer B.
Sprague. I have heard it hinted by the
wicked that Mr. Chamberlain’s real
candidate was some one even more
nearly related to himself. But this I
can hardly believe. He must know
that a college professorship is not a
very highly salaried position: not nearly
so profitable as some other positions
which ex-Governor Chamberlain has
occupied.
: Yours,
Henry A. BEErs.
New Haven, Feb. 17, 1808.
@ 2
et
~~
“News” Elections,
The following elections to the edi-
torial board of the Yale News were
announced last Monday: From 1900—
Edward Belden Greene, of Cleveland,
Ohio; Burns Henry, of Pittsburg, Pa.;
George Nelson Crouse, 1900S., of
Syracuse, N. Y. From 1901—George
Peters Chittenden, of New York City;
BAe Arnold Welch, of Cleveland,
id.
THE COLLEGE PAPERS,
A Review of the Record of Each
Board’s Work.
All the college papers change edi-
torial boards this month, with the ex-
ception of the Record. The Senior
boards of the four papers are illustrated
in this issue. In the article that fol-
lows a brief but comprehensive sketch
of the particular record of each editorial
board is given. College journalism is
an extremely important factor in college
life. It is intended by this article to
give a resume of its condition for the
past year.
YALE DAILY NEWS.
- The Ninety-Eight News board took
eontrol of the paper under conditions
slightly differing from those of their
immediate predecessors. The differ-
ence lay in the resumption of the cus-
tom of having but one chairman and
in the reduction of the number of
Senior editors from ten to nine. These
changes resulted in a practical return
to the ideas of the Ninety-Six board in
regard to the internal management of
the News. It then gradually became ap-
parent that the competition for positions
on the paper was still too hard, and took
up far too much of a man’s time. It
was difficult to remedy these faults in
the midst of the contest going on during
the Spring term, but plans were made
to have the new workers in the Fall
start under better conditions. The
natural way to do this seemed to be
to reduce the amount of useless work
done by “heelers.”” This could most
easily be done by having an editor in
the office write up some subject that
came up every week, and was handed in
unfailingly by every contributor. In
other words, have one man do well
what many men did poorly. To this
end the different athletic organizations,
the religious doings, the debating work
and the rest of the routine news were
assigned to associate News editors, and
the “heelers” were excused from get-
ting them. This lessened greatly the
amount of mere mechanical work re-
quired and gave more opportunity for
original and well-written articles.
In connection with the News, another
change was made regarding the Col-
lege correspondents of outside news-
papers. It was felt that most of the
harmful stories from New Haven re-
[Continued on 6th page.]
