290 AS UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT- 1 



entrance tower of Trinity at Cambridge statues of old 

 Yalensian worthies, such as Elihu Yale in his costume of 

 the Georgian period, Bishop Berkeley in his robes, Presi 

 dent Dwight in his Geneva gown, and Nathan Hale in 

 fetters. There was also in my dream another special fea 

 ture, which no one has as yet attempted to realize a lofty 

 campanile, which I placed sometimes at the intersection of 

 College and Church, and sometimes at the intersection of 

 College and Elm streets a clock-tower looking proudly 

 down the slope, over the traffic of the town, and bearing a 

 deep-toned peal of bells. 



My general ideas on the subject were further developed 

 by Charles Astor Bristed s book, &quot;Five Years in an Eng 

 lish University,&quot; and by sundry publications regarding 

 student life in Germany. Still, my opinions regarding 

 education were wretchedly imperfect, as may be judged 

 from one circumstance. The newly established Sheffield 

 Scientific School had just begun its career in the old 

 president s house in front of the former Divinity Hall on 

 the college green ; and, one day in my senior year, looking 

 toward it from my window in North College, I saw a 

 student examining a colored liquid in a test-tube. A feel 

 ing of wonder came over me ! What could it all be about! 

 Probably not a man of us in the whole senior class had 

 any idea of a chemical laboratory save as a sort of small 

 kitchen back of a lecture-desk, like that in which an assist 

 ant and a colored servant prepared oxygen, hydrogen, and 

 carbonic acid for the lectures of Professor Silliman. I 

 was told that this new laboratory was intended for experi 

 ment, and my wonder was succeeded by disgust that any 

 human being should give his time to pursuits so futile. 



The next period in the formation of my ideas regarding 

 a university began, after my graduation at Yale, during 

 my first visit to Oxford. Then and at later visits, both to 

 Oxford and Cambridge, I not only reveled in the architec 

 tural glories of those great seats of learning, but learned 

 the advantages of college life in common of the &quot;halls,&quot; 

 and the general social life which they promote; of 



