338 Nations lately become Literary. 



the province of New- York, for a considerable 

 time, the introduction of a press was entirely pro- 

 hibited. And it is believed similar restraints took 

 place in some of the other colonies. The influence 

 of such restrictions on the general progress of li- 

 beral information could not be otherwise than 

 highly unfavourable. 



At the commencement of the eighteenth cen- 

 tury, an important seminaiy of learning rose in 

 Connecticut. A number of the clergy, anxious, 

 more particularly, that means might be adopted 

 for supplying the churches with a succession of 

 learned and able ministers, conceived the design 

 of erecting a College. This was accordingly soon 

 attempted, and with the most happy success. An 

 act of incorporation was obtained from the General 

 Assembly in the year 1701, and the first com- 

 mencement took place in Saybrook in 1702.° The 

 course of instruction adopted in this College was, 

 in general, directed towards those objects w T hich 

 were before mentioned as being most in vogue in 

 New-England. Its establishment is an important 

 era in the literary history of Connecticut. From 

 this institution, as well as from the sister college 

 in Cambridge, many sons have been sent, who 

 have done honour to their Alma Mafer, and proved 

 benefactors to the cause of liberal knowledge. 



as Supervisors of the press, and prohibited the publishing any books or papert 

 until after they had been examined and approved by them. In 1668 the 

 Supervisors having allowed the celebrated work of Thomas A. Kempis, 

 Be Imitatione Christi, to be printed, the Court interposed, alleging that 

 it " had been written by a popish minister, and contained some things 

 less safe to be diffused among the people." 



o The most of those who graduated on this occasion in Yale College, 

 had previously taken their master's degree at Cambridge, in Massachu- 

 setts. This accounts for a commencement taking place so soon after the 

 erection of the college, and before students could have been carried regu- 

 larly through an academic course. It must be acknowledged, however, 

 that the American colleges early began to discover that fondness for deal- 

 ing out their honours with a liberal hand, which has since so much in- 

 creased, not only in our own country, but also throughout the literary 

 world. 



