YALE AND EUROPE-1850-1857 27 



papers of the United States, and, before his early death, 

 distinguished himself as a writer on political and histori- 

 cal topics. 



Nor was it any better in Latin. We were reading, dur- 

 ing that term the "De Senectute" of Cicero, a beautiful 

 book; but to our tutor it was neither more nor less than 

 a series of pegs on which to hang Zumpt's rules for the 

 subjunctive mood. The translation was hurried through, 

 as of little account. Then came questions regarding the 

 subjunctives; questions to which very few members of 

 the class gave any real attention. The best Latin scholar 



in the class, G. W. S , since so distinguished as the 



London correspondent of the ' ' New York Tribune, ' ' and, 

 at present, as the New York correspondent of the London 

 " Times," having one day announced to some of us, with 

 a very round expletive, that he would answer no more 

 such foolish questions, the tutor soon discovered his recal- 

 citrancy, and thenceforward plied him with such ques- 

 tions and nothing else. S always answered that he 



was not prepared on them; with the result that at the 

 Junior Exhibition he received no place on the programme. 



In the junior year matters improved somewhat; but, 

 though the professors were most of them really distin- 

 guished men, and one at least, James Hadley, a scholar 

 who, at Berlin or Leipsic, would have drawn throngs of 

 students from all Christendom, they were fettered by a 

 system which made everything of gerund-grinding and 

 nothing of literature. 



The worst feature of the junior year was the fact that 

 through two terms, during five hours each week, "recita- 

 tions ' ' were heard by a tutor in ' ' Olmsted 's Natural Phi- 

 losophy. ' ' The text-book was simply repeated by rote. Not 

 one student in fifty took the least interest in it; and 

 the man who could give the words of the text most glibly 

 secured the best marks. One exceedingly unfortunate 

 result of this kind of instruction was that it so disgusted 

 the class with the whole subject, that the really excellent 

 lectures of Professor Olmsted, illustrated by probably 



