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About Yale Alumni Magazine | View Entire Issue (Oct. 25, 1899)
46 SA: AIURSNE WE wie the new Treasurer is forceful, fluent and gifted with not a little rhetorical grace; and it is a token of his rare blend- ing of the mental gifts with executive capacity that many of the Yale grad- uates who knew him best favored him for the Yale Presidency itself. Soon after assuming the position of Yale Treasurer next January, Mr. Tyler will retire from the professorship of General Jurisprudence in the Yale Law School, which he now holds. He will retain the supervisory duties of President of the Southern New England Telephone Com- pany, shifting most of the executive work of the place to his son, Victor M. Tyler, Yale ’o8. Mr. Tyler married in 1873, Delia Talman Audubon, a granddaughter of J. J. Audubon, and in his New Haven home are preserved many mementoes of the great ornithologist. In politics Mr. Tyler is an independent, in creed a Con- gregationalist. He is a member of the Church of the Redeemer in this city, and in his ecclesiastical society has held a number of important posts. The office to which Mr. Tyler will soon succeed has its customs, its policy past and present, and its suggestions of new. policy in this period of almost dramatic academic change. It has also its history. The latter takes us back to a long roster of dignified names to which Mr. Tyler’s is added as the twelfth. In Yale’s high seat of custom have sat © Nathaniel Lynde, donor of Yale’s first house; John Prout, Treasurer for forty- eight years, who kept the College ac- counts in ounces of silver which in the two years, ending with July, 1761, nuim- bered only two thousand and ninety- three on the income side; Roger Sher- man, Judge, Senator and Signer of the Great. Declaration; John Trumbull, writer of the historic political satire, “McFingal”; and James Hillhouse whose name certifies itself in New Ha- ven and Connecticut annals and is still writ large in our elms. Those were days of the res angusta domi in the treasury accounts. The annual reports do not even appear in type until 1830, on a little faded leaflet that in these days would hardly belittle the fiscal returns of the Yale “Codp.” The leaflets wax in size with the years, growing, however, not by any change of form in the state- ment so mttch as by mere tv»ographical expansion of numerals; and it is not un- til 1876, that the antique and inflexible system reaches the dimensions of the thin pamphlet of to-day, which supplies no general balance sheet, no summaries ex- cept by departments, no comparison by years, no verbal review or suggestions. Conservatism and tradition have had their fastness in the College Treasury and its report in form has been prac- tically changeless for well nigh three quarters of a century. To expand, vita- lize and clarify it, to make its figures rel- ative and expressive, rather than abso- lute and bald, and to substitute publicity for obscurity, will be one of the earliest and most imperative tasks of the new Treasurer. Difficulties, undoubtedly, there will be owing to the unique forms of college assets—for an example Van- derbilt Hall, a gift of unknown cost standing on ancient college land of un- known value. But not many of those difficulties are insurperable and the foot- note can explain flaws of exactitude. *Nicer and more prudential questions may arise in regard to the treatment in the annual report of some University assets—such, for instance, as the large Sheffield fund, held as a separate trust and not appearing in the treasurer's statement—but they do not impair seri- ously the general theory of publicity, of full information for the ten thousand Yale graduates and, so far as may be, of coordination and fullness of University accounts. As preface and text for the larger problems ahead of the new Treasurer may be cited the various Yale funds and their increase as they appear approxi- mately in the table annexed, covering, save one year, the period of President Dwight’s administration: 1887. 1808. University .........$ 502,705 $1,635,550 PReACRNG 5. ccs 5. s 1,030,420 1,607,890 Theological School. 416,123 649,122 Scientific School ... 160,989 406.312. Medical School .... 27,051 105,325 Peet ACHOOL 5... is. 98,166 108,775 aw SOCUOOL....... CW geo te UES & trie eg Musical Department ..... 5,000 $2,273,092 $4,635,321 The regular funds, not counting cer- tain outside properties, thus showing an increase for the period of $2,362,229, or more than 100 per cent. The showing is a splendid one both in absolute magni- tude and gains. But on closer analysis of the treasurer’s report there are some minor but pathetic interludes. There are, for example, the growing Medical School often aided by funds transferred or specially donated; the Art School needing so much its professorship of Architecture; the Divinity School, well endowed, yet stagnant in numbers, with its charity system planted only a few feet away from the platform where Presi- dent Hadley uttered last week his plea for academic self-help; and, finally, the Scientific School, next to the Academic Department in numerical and physical rank, yet with only a paltry $9,008 for scholarship funds in a branch where practical scientific education appeals specially to the student who is poor. But the great problem before the new Treasurer will be that of the re-invest- ment of funds. The outgoing Treasurer by his skill and financial judgment has succeeded in keeping the average interest return at five per cent. Such a return cannot possibly continue. The period when long high rate railroad bonds are falling in is reaching its climax, the old six and seven per cents. are refunding. into the fours, ‘three and a half and even threes, bedrock loans on mortgage and note have dropped from: seven and six per cent. to five, four and a half and to four. Conservative incomes have been halved and the Yale treasury faces the same grave financial enigmas as the savings banks without their legal re- strictions on investments. There are, roughly stated, three lines of future re- investment: The radical and specula- tive, which is not to be thought of; at the other extreme the ultra-conservative high grade investment, yielding now but little more than three per cent.—easy, almost alphabetical financiering, which, as the price of absolute security, would reduce present income of Yale funds by some $80,000 a year; and, finally, the securities yielding net when averaged say four and a half per cent., in choosing which financial experience and sagacity, along with a little courage, in the long run far more than compensate for the occasional slight loss. To these may be added the senior securities of new enter- prises taken at just the point where they pass in public estimate from the limbo of speculation into that of conservatism. ‘These may or may not be forecasts of the future treasury policy. Incidentally it may be noticed that the difference reckoned on existing Yale funds _ be- tween timidity and courage tipped with intelligence is some $50,000 a year. Un- der any reasonable possibility, however, the University treasury must prepare for some reduction of funded income unless made good from interest returns on new gifts. There is a suggestive outlook in yet another direction. In the whole Uni- versity there are now some 2,600 stu- dent. Of these, about 800 are housed in the dormitories of the Academic De- partment and some 300 more in the Divinity Halls, the society dormitories of the Scientific School and in other College buildings. Fifteen hundred stu- dents room outside, of whom probably twelve hundred would lodge in dormi- tories if they could. The demand for the dormitory life is indexed by the suc- cess of the large private lodging houses near the Campus, which in their fixed charges must include taxes on both structure and land and correspondingly raise their price to the student tenant. The dormitory, as a treasury investment, has. distitict “vantages.” it stands “in “a -in'the rooms on the first floor. favorable relation to Yale democracy and the educative rubs of academic social life; it is closely localized and super- vised; it is sure of its tenants for years to come; and with construction that is utilitarian rather than ornate it will represent a positive economy to the student while: returning to the Univer- sity treasury a net income of five per cent. Over and against the plan stands the spectre of taxation not exorcised by the recent decision of the Connecticut Supreme Court so long as the legislative “alter or repeal” clause stands in the Yale charter of 1745. It 4s in: this branch of potential Yale investment that Mr. Tyler’s local nersonality, his tact, his knowledge of law, of men and of affairs in city and State, ought to be peculiarly effective. There will be no more tax suits by the City of New Ha ven, no more threats of appeal to the General Assembly and we may expect confidently that friction of town and gown will be reduced to its lowest terms if not extinguished. If in the future amities of the. inter-dependent Uni- versity and city some concessions are made by Yale in the two-sided matter of taxation, they will not be untimely or unwise. No reference to the Yale treasury is complete without its final tribute to Mr. W. W. Farnam, who for eleven years has been the fiscal head of the Univer- sity. Mr. Farnam has done much and in a broad way to harmonize the treas- ury work and methods with the needs of expanding Yale. He _ substituted early the payment of salaries by mailed check for the undignified payment by hand; he has shifted to the bursar the clerical routine of small contracts, re- pairs and the collection of student fees; and, of much vaster import, he has in- vested the funds with such wisdom that the present annual income still remains at a five per cent. rate. As a crowning token of his fidelity and zeal it should be stated here, on authoritv. that his eleven years of toil, no small span of a human life, have been given without pay and even with personal expense. On that long roll of self-sacrificing Yale workers of the type of Timothy Dwight and Othniel C. Marsh, surely Mr. Far- nam is not the last. In this period of transition so historic and picturesque yet so solemn, we ought to reflect thank- fully how well Mr. Farnam has laid the foundations for that new administra- tion by young men which, as the Scots say, “lifts” us and in which old tradition and drift are to yield to far foresight and design. CLARENCE DEMING. Inaugural Dinner. The inaugural dinner given on Tues- day night, Oct. 17,. at the University Club was the first event of the cele- bration. Ninety-three undergraduates and guests sat down to tables arranged Har- vard was represented by J. L. Higgin- son and —}: . Saltonstall. captam and manager of the Harvard Crew, and the other guests of the evening were: Endi- cott Peabody, headmaster of Groton Seheol; «Prot... Henry. Ai Beersand Frank S. Butterworth, Yale ’95. Presi- dent Hadley was unable to attend. J. Medill McCormick, 1900, Presi- dent of the Chub, was toastmaster. The speakers were: Prof. Beers; Matthew Mills, 1900; J. M. Hopkins, 1900, and Frank S. Butterworth. A PERFECT INAUGURATION. Details of an Unprecedented Day in Yale’s History—The Speech of Induction. All went well and more than well. The inauguration of President Hadley was carried out with wonderful com- pleteness and perfection of system. It was on a plan whose scope few had be- fore thoroughly appreciated, and was full of a spirit which it was impossible to quite anticipate. | The ceremonies were impressive, the address met with the most enthusiastic response, the attendance showed every- thing that one could ask for in the way of cooperation and good-will from all the educational interests of America, as well as carried a tribute to Yale, with which the most exacting of her sons must have been well satisfied. The hardly less important participation of the undergraduates, although on a scale never before attempted here, and with numberless unexpected details, not only went through on time, but in a spirit which quite carried all with it, both spectators and participators. No one could complain that Yale was not to- gether in the most literal and best mean- ing of the term. And New Haven and Yale were shown to be together. There could have been no more zealous par- ticipation in the celebration than that shown by the people of New Haven from the Mayor to the humblest citizens. There was everything that was ex- pected and a good deal that was not ex- pected. The weather, which, if unfavor- able, would have most seriously thrown out the program, and which threatened the worst of Fall storms in the early morning, began to give promise of better things by the middle of the morning. Through the afternoon and evening it was very pleasant. The air was close in the afternoon and the rain of the night before had left those streets in New Haven which are still treated on the old plan, in as bad a condition as they well could be. But heat and mud could not affect such a celebration as was the inaugura- tion of President Hadley. From that first break of sunlight in the middle of the morning until the last glow of the gym-lot bonfire well toward the next morning, events moved along on sched- ule time or better. The only regret was, that the speakers along the line of the torchlight parade could not have been equipped with some multiple mega- phone arrangement which would have enabled them to address the whole pro- cession at once. The demands of section after section to hear from Mayor Dris- coll, the Yale executive of New Haven, and from President Hadley. and the others, held the long procession of the evening back from time to time, with de- lays that were somewhat irksome to the spectators and more so to those in the procession. But the celebrators would not have been content without the speeches from the Mavor, and could cer- tainly not pass by the President, and only the impossible was yielded to in any inconvenience that resulted there- from. A FEATURE ,OF THE TORCHLIGHT PARADE. Photo by Corbin & Konold.
