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About Yale Alumni Magazine | View Entire Issue (Nov. 15, 1899)
TALE ALUMNI WEEKLY 81 PITTSBURG DINNER. President Hadley Speaks-— Policy and Plans of the University. The Yale alumni of Pittsburg held their annual dinner at the Pittsburg Club, Friday evening, Nov. 3, at which ‘here was an attendance of about seventy- five members and guests. Albert H. Childs, ’61, was toastmaster and these toasts were responded to: Our University ....... .... Pres. Hadley “Mother of Arts and Eloquence.” —Multon New: Yalez. eee F. C. Perkins, ’94 “Grow old along with me, The best is yet to be.” —Browning Yale’s Influence, Rt. Rev. Cortlandt Whitehead, 763 “If there be good in that I wrought, Thy hand compelled it * * * Where I have failed to meet thy thought, I know, through thee, the blame is mine.” —Kipling Our Men of Affairs....J. T. Brooks, ’63 “So much one man can do That does both act and know.” —Andrew Marvel Yale from the Outside.E. W. Smith, ’78 “Cast one longing, lingering look behind.” —Gray Informal speeches were also made by R. H. Fitzhugh, 63, and J. C. Green- way, 95 S., the former of whom served in the Philippines and the latter in- Cuba. During his stay in Pittsburg President Hadley addressed the students of the Shadyside Academy and of the Pitts- burg High School, and made a powerful address at the fourth anniversary cele- bration of the founding of the Carnegie Institute, on “Modern Changes in Edu- cational Ideals.” Responding to the toast “Our Uni- versity,’ at the Pittsburg dinner, Presi- dent Hadley said: President Hadley’s Address. Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Yale Alumni Association :—I am sure no man could wish for a better first gather- ing to address as President than this be- fore me. JI have enjoyed all my visit to Pittsburg, but I need not say that I have enjoyed this evening far more than all the rest of it put together. You spoke of the first passage which was given to you, Mr. Chairman, by my father, in Greek, and of your impression as to what you did not know about Greek. I notice on the program the sentiment, “Mother of Arts and Eloquence,” and I am im- pressed, as I think over that sentiment, with the large number of things that I do not know about eloquence. But I will get through the preliminaries as quickly as possible and tell you what, [ have no doubt, you want to hear—the things that are going on at Yale now; what we have done in the past; what we are trying to do in the present, and what we have before us, as part of our im- portant problems in the immediate future. THE NEW SECRETARY. In the first place, in the immediate past we have filled the offices of Secre- tary and Treasurer. They were hard places to fill. You know, many of you,— all of us know, I think,—what Mr. Dex- ter has been to the College in the past, and many of us know what Mr. Farnam has been to the College in the years that have just gone by. Now I shall not say much of our Secretary, as his name is well known. Mr. Anson Phelps Stokes Is a representative of young Yale, even younger Yale, even newer Yale, than the man who is chosen to respond to that toast. He is a wide-awake man, and I hope in future years the Pittsburg Alumni Association will have the chance of making his acquaintance. THE NEW TREASURER. The filling of the Treasurership is new. It was, of course, a very difficult problem to find a man to take the place. It is not easy to find a man who can manage a property of from four to five million dollars of invested funds, not to speak of as much more of buildings and grounds, for a salary of five thou- sand dollars a year, and I was glad to find, in connection with the discussion as to the place, how disinterested the loyalty of Yale men was and how glad they were to think of sacrificing pect- niary prospects for the sake of an oppor- tunity to serve the College and help in her development. JI am glad to say that we have a first rate man, a man who has been known to many of you— President of the Southern New England Telephone Company, a successful cor- poration; an excellent business man; a. man who has not only a knowledge of investing money, but, what in these days has come to be of almost equal im- portance, a knowledge of spending money; a man who has not only a knowledge of business, but a knowledge of building, for at present our buildings are an example of architectural styles of somewhat chaotic character. AN IMPORTANT ATHLETIC MOVE. I am also glad to announce that we shall, in the immediate future, almost certainly be able to have filled a posi- tion which in the past has remained un- filled, and sometimes to the detriment of Yale—the place of a responsible super- visor of our athletic interests. Now, I am not talking about recent football games. This is a good time, perhaps, to recall that passage in one of Walter Besant’s novels—I think it is “All Sorts and Conditions of Men,” where he says of his hero that he was a gentleman; he liked to play games as well as other people did; he didn’t want to play games better than other people did; that would have shown that he was not a gentleman. (Laughter and applause.) This is a good quotation to have in use just at the present time. We have had in the immediate past at Yale a lack, which has been felt more and more as the University grew larger and larger, of any continuous ordering of the athletic arrangements. Now I am not speaking of mere faculty super- vision, for most of what has been known by the name of faculty supervision would have been better left undone in various colleges; but we have no authority that can bring one year’s experience to the service of the next. Take this one thing alone. The Yale Field, where most of our athletic sports are conducted, is the property of a cor- poration whose directors are graduates of Yale; still, it is an outside corpora- tion. The capital account is handled by the Directors of the Yale Field: the in- come and expenses account is handled by student managers, who, for the most part, it is true, have ability, but who, nevertheless, are elected for the one year, and go out at the end of the year. Now, what would you think of any business corporation if the capi- tal account were handled by one set of men and the income and expense account were handled by a totally different set of men, each running for themselves? Negotiations are under way, which I am confident will prove successful, in bringing the Yale Field into such control that our capital account and income ac- count will be under the same hands, and by thus keeping the money interest to- gether, we shall have some central au- thority, which will be able, not only to manage the expenditures wisely, but to give us the means of deciding important questions, as to what teams may fairly bear the name of Yale and what men may fairly play on those teams, deciding them not as either students or Faculty would, but deciding them in the light of permanent experience, year after year. So much for the offices we have filled and are hoping to fill. NEW BUILDINGS. Now with regard to the extension of the University in the matter of buildings. You are aware, most of you, that a large part of the program for 1901, contem- plates the construction of certain build- ings. If some of our friends here in Pittsburg keep putting the prices of iron up, we can hardly construct those build- ings before 1901, but we still hope to, and shall rely greatly on the Yale Alumni Association of Pittsburg to pre- vent Pittsburg people from taking out- side contracts that would interfere with the construction of those buildings within the proper time. Last Summer, when I first became intimately ac- quainted with the matter, things stood in this shape: Some subscriptions had been made in a few quarters to a bi- centennial fund, to see what we were been men of eminent © going to be able to do, and we found that with comparatively little effort, four hundred thousand dollars was sub- scribed. On that basis, we went ahead to see what ground we could purchase. They had done that before I came into office, and they found that the most available ground to purchase was the block, or a large part of the block, just west of College Street, between Wall and Grove. Yale already owns a large part of the block just south of that. That is, the lot immediately north of Durfee, about nine-tenths of it. More than one-half of the block west of Col- lege Street was purchased last June for a site for a bi-centennial building for an auditorium and a dining hall. The mat- ter has been put in the hands of several architects for competition. AUDITORIUM AND DINING HALL. The competitive plans have been sub- mitted, but the choice has not been made. Before the end of the month we shall have decided on a plan for a group of buildings to be put on the second lot north of the Campus, between the Aca- demical and Scientific departments. In all the designs, practically, there will be some sort of memorial building on the corner of College and Grove; that is, opposite the Scientific School, and there will be one large building on College Street; and, if we have the money, as I have no doubt we shall, another on Grove Street. will be an auditorium, and another a dining hall. How much we need both an auditorium and a dining hall, every. alumnus who has been to Yale in re- cent years can testify. The chapel is not big enough to contain all the alumni for speeches, nor is Alumni Hall big enough to contain all the alumni for eating, and these buildings will be of very great use during the year. It is a very great want of Yale right through the year, that in a University of over 2,500 students, we have no build- ing that holds much more than half that number. AN HARMONIOUS BUILDING PLAN. Now we need, in the first place, an auditorium, and we are going to have an auditorium; and if in addition to an auditorium we get the money for a din- ing hall, we are going to have a dining hall, too. More than that, we are ar- ranging in this competition not merely to get plans for those buildings, but also to get some plan for all the buildings of the University, by which, instead of each building being an inharmonious thing - without relation to the others, we can have some plan of building development that shall carry us on further. These then, are our plans in the way of build- ing—those that are immediately before us. But, besides this, or especially to connect this with the bi-centennial, we have the land and we have a crying need for more lecture halls. We are scandalously unprovided with those, as well as with some dormitories. I hope it will be possible for more students to live in the college buildings, for in that way only do they get the best of college life. PLANS OF ADMINISTRATION. But our building plans are not the only plans we have before us. There are plans of internal administration. a University Council of representatives from the different departments, which shall discuss questions that affect more than one department, and enable the Law course and the Medical course and the Academical course and the Scientific course, and the other courses to get into organic relations with each other. At present each has arranged its course without relation to the others. If we have a means of comparing things side by side, we can all work together on a better basis and we can tttilize our power a great deal better. THE ELECTIVE . SYSTEM. Then, within the College itself,— I speak of the Academic Department; the Scientific Department is arranged in a better way,—we have had _ what has been called an elective system. Now, the word elective is all right enough, but the word system does not apply to it at all. It has been arranged in this way: Fach department thought that it ought to have all the time it wanted for its One of these buildings it the: ~ first place, we have already established _teaching, and whatever was left could be taken up by the other departments. It is very much the way they arrange the River and Harbor Bills in Congress, where each member thinks he ought to have all that he wants and whatever is left over the others can have. Our elective system. has been very much like the River and Harbor Bill. The Classi- cal Department wanted a great deal: the Psychological Department wanted a great deal; the Political Department wanted a great deal, and so on; and finally, they all agreed, by a sort of process of log rolling; and having seen about what sort of measure could com- mand the necessary votes to carry it through, they have carried it through if they could. : We must discuss what methods and what courses of study will give the vari- ous students a means of meeting their several wants and their several needs, and arrange the courses, not on the basis of compromise between conflicting claims, but reconciliation of conflicting views, which is quite another thing, and in order to do that, we must get into connection with the schools. A. reformation of this kind has to be.a slow matter, as any busi- ness dealings are slow matters, but with that spirit that we have at Yale, in the Faculty and in the alumni—and I cannot possibly acknowledge, as I should like to, the devoted readiness to do everything that they are called for which has been manifested from all quarters —with the spirit that we have in the students and in the Faculty and in the alumni, and in the outside friends of the institution, I believe that a little patience and a great deal of persistence will see Yale in her rightful place, not only at the head of some departments of education, as she is at present, but in leadership in an organized body, wherein all educational institutions shall have part, and in whose operations the whole world shall be the field. een GAB Qe Pot-Pourri Editors. The Pot-Pourri for the year 1899-1900 will be edited by Frank Taylor Craw- ford, 1900, Mansfield, O.; Matthew Mills, 1900, Chicago, Ill., and James Henry Niedecken, 1900, Milwaukee, Wis. NS. THE GUARANTEE ON at RAD & —— CLUETT, PEABODY & (2 SHIRTS 13 not all that makes them good —it’s the material in them— the way they fit—the amount of value you get for ONE DOLLAR At Your Furnisher or Clothier CLUETT, PEABODY & CO. Makers Best Line to Denver Comfortable, roomy, wide- Burlington Route vestibuled trains leave daily from both Chicago 1--and St. Louis. Fast express trains, only one night on the road. P. §. EUSTIS, Gen’l Pass’r Agt., Chicago.
