Vou. Vile. Nena
NEW HAVEN, CONN., WEDNESDAY, MARCH 15, 1899.
Prick Ten Cents.
ALUMNI AND PRESIDENCY,
What Wale Men Ask For In Their
Next Leader—Views of Wen From
Many Parts of the Country.
What special qualities do the sons of
Yale ask for in their next President?
This is the main answer:
First—That his reputation shall! be a
national one.
Second—That he be a Yale man,
Third—That he be a young man.
This is, in brief, the theme and the
conclusion of this article. The reason
for asking the question and the means
taken by this paper for answering it,
are worth further elaboration. The
three main points of the answer will
bear further definition.
A few months ago Dr. Timothy
Dwight determined to establish a pre-
cedent as to the years of usefulness of
a college president, and tendered his
resignation as President. When the
loss of such a head as Dr. Dwight
makes it necessary to find a man cap-
able of fulfilling all the demands that
the conduct of a modern University is
certain to make upon its chief officer,
then, and only then, does one realize
the extreme scope of such demands. It
has not happened that many of our great
universities have been, in the last few
years, face to face with such a situation,
and so it is that the requirements have.
not been brought prominently to the
front and the growth of those require-
ments studied.
The University of Cincinnati is look-
ing for a President and the Committee
having his selection in charge are the
most recent seekers in the field, and so
the most acquainted with the difficulties
of the problem. And they find it a
most dificult one. How much more
then must those feel it, who have to
find a man to place at the head of such
a University as Yale? As a member of
the Corporation puts it: “If anyone can
give us the man for the place, send him
on; we shall take him.”
Ten thousand Yale graduates are
ready to look for the man. They wish
to aid, but not to interfere with this
important function of the Corporation.
If it were possible for the selection of
a fit man to be of more vital interest
to any members of the community than
to the. Yale Corporation, it would be
to the Yale graduates; for there is no
more loyal body living than they, and
any weakness in the University they
love will be a hurt to their hearts such
as only the closest family affliction
could equal.
The Atumn1 WEEKLY has in the past
month, largely through personal inter-
views, endeavored to bring the views of
the graduates into available form and
to collect information such as would
be valuable to those who have to select
the President whether it were in form
that might be published or not. A trip
by one of the editors of the paper has
included Chicago, Cincinnati, Dayton,
St. Louis, Washington, New York,
Boston, Hartford, Waterbury, and other
Yale centers in the eastern part of the
country, and while it was impossible to
see all who think and feel deeply and
who can speak with authority, the trip
meant interviews with hundreds. And
this has been supplemented by views of
hundreds more, secured by correspond-
ence, including representative Yale
men everywhere. Replies have come
from nearly all and each letter speaks
of the deep interest felt. Limitations
of time, and the hope of secur-
ing personal interviews, have prevented
correspondence with many others, but
in general the Yale territory has been
quite well covered. Of course one man
can speak for many, if he mingle with
them and think seriously.
It is within the truth to say that the
canvass of the country has placed the
paper in the possession of facts indicat-
ing how each one of ten or more can-
* didates would be received in the great
Yale strongholds. There has also been
established such a connection as makes
it possible to furnish, upon very short
notice, the views of nearly any section
REV. BURDETT HART, D.D.
Member of Yale Corporation.
and, in a measure, the qualities of the
resident of any section as they are
known to his intimate friends and ac-
quaintances. But this would be chiefly
matter which it would not, at least as
things appear now, be wise to place
in print, and which is therefore aside
from the purpose of this article.
LOYALTY TO OLD LEADERS.
A few quotations will help to show
how deep in the hearts of the graduates
is the love for those men who have
sacrificed so much for Yale. “My ad-
miration for Professor 7
is such that I would nominate him for
any post to which that gentleman felt |
himself equal.” “My contemporaries
would like to see Professor
. —— president of Yale or president of
the United States or president of any
other thing he would care to be presi-
dent of.” “We would like to see Pro-
fessor president, al-
though our sentiment may be largely
the result of personal regard and
gratitude.”
Some of these are only examples of
the first impulsive words of men who
have made themselves names in the
world and look back to the years at
Yale and the men who stood to them
for all that is strong and forceful, all
that is commanding in scholarship and
character. Many of these enthusiastic
champions, brought face to face with
the forgotten fact that, as years have
passed over their own heads, so they
must have touched those of whom they
can not think as a day older than when
they last saw them: realizing that, no
matter how kindly has been that touch
of time, it must have left its mark,
grow for a moment sad in the reflection
that the time will come, must come,
has in many instances already come,
when the old give way to the new.
All know that many of the men who
have in the past stood at the front of
Yale are one by one reaching the years
when they must look at the setting and
not the rising sun. But it is a pleasure
to feel that these men live yet in the
hearts of the boys they taught and there
at least they will never die, and never
grow more gray. It is hardly an exag-
geration to say that nearly all the old
classes; until they actually see the class
numerals, want to present the names of
their own favorite Professor as just the
man for the Presidency. With such a
constituency as this, one can but feel
that every personal desire will be
merged in rejoicing at the selection of
the right leader and that leader will
have behind him such a following as
will enable him to accomplish all that
man can do for the interests of the Uni-
versity.
One of the first impressions caused
by meeting and talking with the alumni
through the country, is that of the ex-
treme desire of everyone to learn what
men are being considered and what the
alumni in other sections think of the
type of man needed. Personal visits to
and conversation with such men as
might perhaps fairly represent the best
expression of opinion among Yale men
in the important cities, have elicited
suggestions that will be of interest to
all members of the Yale family. In re-
gard to these expressions of views,
particular attention has been paid to se-
curing as widely distributed ideas as
possible.
THE MEN SEEN.
The men who have been seen have
been representative of every field of
activity and men who have earned the
right to have their judgment considered
by having themselves risen to promi-
nence in the world ‘of education, or of
letters; who have attained the very
highest position in the professions or
who have made themselves powers in
the world of business or of finance.
Clergymen of note, supreme court
justices, presidents of educational insti-
tutions, heads of the largest business
corporations, experts in all fields—and
in their distribution one sees the re-
markable breadth of the Yale product—
have given their views and all have
talked with perfect freedom, not only
as to the type of man, but also as to
individuals. Many of the opinions re-
garding individual candidates were
given in confidence and to be placed
at the service of those who may have
direct reason for their use under like
conditions of confidence. But the views
HON. FREDERICK J. KINGSBURY, LL.D.
Member of Yale Corporation.
as to the type of man, the expression
of opinion as to the attributes which
should surround the next president of
Yale, were given unreservedly and with
a desire that they be freely disseminated
and discussed by all Yale graduates.
In giving these- views in their crystal-
lized form, one may expect most
naturally to meet the inquiry as to
whether any man can possibly combine
all the qualifications. That inquiry
should not, however, deter such state-
ments, nor, because such demands would
require an ideal president, should they
be passed by. To secure the best it is
always necessary to set up an ideal.
THE DEMANDS.
The demand most common and
listened to from all sections, is that the.
man be of national reputation. If he be
a professional man, that he be recog-
nized by name; that if he be a pro-
nounced educator, he be known among
those skilled in the science of teaching
for his experience and achievements in
that line; that if he be a man of teach-
ing affairs his name should be a power
where such names are mentioned. Men
who are ready to argue against any
particitlar: callie. and in: favor. of
another, unite in calling for promi-
nence. In favor of this they say that
the present situation calls peculiarly for
a man whose very name shall command
respect and that too, in no uncertain
manner, for one who has already been
a leader.
_ The next most widely voiced desire
is that the man be a Yale man; that
the choice be not made outside of the
men who have lived and breathed Yale’s
traditions.
The third qualification in order of the
general desire, is that the next president
be a comparatively young man, one
whose opportunity for carrying out his
projects be not limited to a few years,
and whose ambitions have not given
way to a too settled conviction that
every thing in this life that may be
done, has already been done. There is
a most marked desire that the man have
the hopes of youth, rather than the
scepticisms of age. As one man put
it: “Few men pass sixty without be-
lieving too strongly in the probabilities
of failure.”
~
OTHER DESIRES.
After these three, the opinions begin
to be more divided. Among the most
marked of those advanced after these
salient points appears to be the belief
that the man should be one in whose
character the trait of human sympathy
be a pronounced one; a man of
magnetic influence, stimulating, lead-
ing and urging to a desire of imitation
in its best sense. 3
Pressing closely upon this is the de-
mand that he be a man of what for
want of a better term men are inclined
to call “orthodox” belief and life, in-
spiring reverence and exhibiting in him-
self a fitting type of the University that
owes so much to the strong religious
convictions of its great men in the past.
Then there are equally divided desires
for an expert educator, for a man of
especial administrative qualities, for a
man of financial acumen, for a man of
pronounced executive ability.
ACTION DESIRED.
There is one point upon which
opinions seem very strongly united, and
that is against anything that would
savor of postponement or of a tem-
porary arrangement. The principal ar-
gument against this is embodied in the
fact that it would in a way cast a
stigma upon the man eventually chosen;
that a fair inference would be that he
had already been considered, ‘but had
been found wanting, and that such a
reflection would cast doubt upon his
