YALE COLLEGE, RECENT CHANGES IN. 



841 



president is a grandson of the Timothy D wight 

 that was president of the college from 1795 till 

 1817. He was born in Norwich, Conn., Nov. 

 16, 1828, and was graduated at Yale in 1849, 

 studied theology there from 1850 till 1853, and 

 served as a tutor from 1851 till 1855. He then 

 went to Germany, where he studied in Bonn 

 and Berlin, in 1856-'58. In the latter year he 

 returned to accept the chair of Sacred Litera- 

 ture and New Testament Greek in the Theo- 

 logical Seminary at Yale, and has since held it 

 until his election to the presidency of the uni- 

 versity. President D wight has been better 

 known for his work in connection with the 

 college than for that outside. He has taken 

 an active interest in its affairs, and by his per- 

 sonal efforts has largely influenced its growth. 

 His ideas as to the future of the college were 

 first set forth in a series of articles published 

 in the " New-Englander," of which he became 

 an editor in 1856. They appeared in 1870-'7l, 

 and were entitled " The True Ideal of an Ameri- 

 can University." The series was afterward 

 published in pamphlet form, and attracted 

 much attention. President Dwight was a 

 member of the American Committee for the 

 Revision of the English Version of the Bible, 

 from 1878 till the completion of the work in 

 1885. His election as president of the uni- 

 versity gave universal satisfaction even those 

 who preferred other candidates recognizing 

 that these could not be elected, and that Prof. 

 Dwight was a safe mean between the radical 

 party, who favored the Harvard plan of un- 

 limited electives, and the advocates of the old 

 hard-and-fast curriculum. What is known of 

 his ideas has led to the anticipation that, under 

 his administration, the united growth of all 

 departments of the university will be fostered, 

 and that they will be made to strengthen one 

 another, rather than that any should yield 

 precedence to the purely collegiate depart- 

 ments. This idea was confirmed by the ad- 

 dress of Prof. Dwight at his induction, which 

 took place in the Center Church, New Haven, 

 on July 1, 1886, in the presence of a large 

 body of graduates, and of many distinguished 

 guests, including the Presidents of Harvard, 

 Princeton, Trinity, and Wesleyan, and mem- 

 bers of the faculties of fifteen or twenty other 

 colleges. The ceremony was introduced by 

 President Porter, who, after a brief address, 

 placed in the hands of the president-elect the 

 charter and seal of the college, while those 

 present confirmed the act by rising. After a 

 congratulatory address in Latin by Prof. Tracy 

 Peck, the new president delivered his inaugu- 

 ral. He began by quoting the letter of accept- 

 ance of the first President Dwight, his grand- 

 father, dated Aug. 17, 1795, and called at- 

 tention to the fact that, as at that time the 

 institution was changing from a school into 

 a college, so now the college seems to be 

 developing into a university. He then said 

 that the future university must be built on 

 the lines of the already existing college, that 



it would be necessary to begin with the lower or 

 undergraduate department and work outward 

 and upward, binding together with it the now 

 loosely cohering professional schools, instead 

 of thinking to begin at once with the higher 

 departments. He spoke, in passing, of the re- 

 lations of the president to the university, and 

 said that, while he had thought it best to stipu- 

 late that he should do no teaching in the col- 

 lege, the office should never be allowed to sink 

 to that of a mere business agent. He then 

 touched on the needs of the growing university, 

 gave his testimony to the value of the classics 

 in a system of education, alluded to the recent 

 changes in the curricnlum (mentioned below) 

 as affording opportunities for development, and 

 closed with an acknowledgment of Christianity 

 as the most precious inheritance left to the 

 college by its founders, and a promise to keep 

 it through all stages of future growth. 



Cnrricnluni. In the beginning of the session 

 of 1884-'85, a change in the course of study 

 took effect in the academical department. Pre- 

 vious to that time every student in the college 

 had about fifteen hours of recitations per week. 

 This was entirely required work in the first 

 two years, but four hours a week in the last 

 two years was " elective " work, chosen by 

 the student from a list of about a dozen courses 

 of study. By the recent change over half the 

 work of junior year, and four fifths of that 

 of senior year was made elective, and the study 

 of modern languages was made to begin in the 

 freshman instead of in the junior year, as be- 

 fore. The faculty express themselves as satis- 

 fied with this change, and many students have 

 profited by it to take twenty or even twenty- 

 five hours of work per week instead of the 

 fifteen required of them. 



New Buildings. The Sloane Memorial Labora- 

 tory, which was opened in the spring of 1884, 

 is situated on the south side of Library Street, 

 between High and York, directly in the rear 

 of the College Library. It is two stories and a 

 half high, with high basement. The basement 

 is built of freestone, and the rest of the build- 

 ing of common brick, with trimmings of pressed 

 brick. It has a tower surmounted by a cu- 

 pola. This laboratory is intended for work in 

 physics alone ; the projected Kent Chemical 

 laboratory, which, with the Sloane, is intended 

 to cover the usual range of university labora- 

 tory facilities, is mentioned below. The base- 

 ment of the Sloane Laboratory contains store- 

 rooms, rooms for special forms of investigation, 

 an engine-room containing a seven horse-power 

 gas-engine, and an Edison dynamo and battery 

 closets. The first floor contains the large physi- 

 cal lecture- room, two stories in height, and 

 seating about 200 students. It can be lighted 

 with incandescent electric lights, so regulated 

 that the process is visible to the student. The 

 lecture-table is a solid pier of brick extending 

 to the ground, and the lecturer lias at his dis- 

 posal electricity from either dynamos or bat- 

 teries, gas, water, or a beam of sunlight, 



