xxiv Centennial Anniversary 



leads the way to the consideration of this subject rather than that; 

 appoints on committees tliose who reflect his own views. He is 

 held by the public responsible for the success of the organization, 

 and he must have an influence commensurate with his responsibil- 

 ity. 



President Day's retirement loosened the connection between 

 the Academy and the College, and none of his successors in the 

 presidency of Yale have had any prominent ofiicial connection 

 with the Academy. President Woolsey's studies ran in the direc- 

 tion of the classics and of political science and jurisprudence. 

 From these the Academy had largely turned away since the insti- 

 tution of the American Journal of Science and Arts, and during 

 his term of oflice as President of the University, the rise and 

 growth of the Scientific School had brought it into a more vital 

 connection with that than it had ever had w^ith the college proper, 

 or, as it now began to be called, the academic department. 



Another change came over the Academy at the time when the 

 last of its original founders were passing away. In the true and 

 original sense it had from its early years been a convivial body. 

 Nothing, after all, promotes freedom of intellectual intercourse, 

 and the exchange of thought, so much as gathering to share a 

 social meal. Such assemblies the Romans called convivia 

 because, as Cicero says in one of his letters,f it is on occasions of 

 this kind that life is most truly enjoyed. 



From its early days it had been one of the unwritten laws and 

 institutions of the Academy, that the member at whose house the 

 monthly or bi-monthly meetings were held should provide some 

 simple entertainment to succeed the regular business of the even- 

 ing. At first the refection was confined to the fruit in season, or 

 nuts and raisins. Later it assumed more the form of a supper, 

 and while some of the members insisted that it did as much as 

 anything else to hold the Academy together, there were others, 

 among whom President (then Professor) Woolsey was prominent, 

 who declared that it was a diversion from their proper work and 

 ought to be abandoned. 



In November, 1842, a committee was appointed to report on 

 the expediency of such a change of practice, consisting of Pev. 

 Dr. Murdock, and Professors Larned and Olmstead. A month 



* To Lucius Papinius Paetus, Book XIII, Ep. IX. 



