in 1755 freshmen were forbidden to fire great guns at the commencement, and if crackers and guns are fired, "the Elumination of the College on the evening before" is to be "wholly suppressed."1

But even these stringent measures were not sufficient; so five years later there was enacted a prohibition of drunkenness and riot on commencement week, and no candidate for a degree was allowed to have over 2 gallons of wine, an amount which seems ample. In 17612 heroic measures were resorted to, and no public commencement was held. The same course was adopted in 1762 and 1765.3 At the time of coramencement in 1761, President Clap felt obliged to come out with a card in the Connecticut Gazette:

Whereas, on last Tuesday evening, a number of persons gathered together near the College and there and round the town fired a great number of guns, to the great disturbance and terror of his Majesties subjects, and brake the college windows and fences, and several of them had gowns on with a design to bring a scandal upon the College. These may certify that I and the Tutors several times walked among and near the rioters and could not see any scholars among them; but they appeared to be principally the people of the town, with a few strangers.*

In 1764 some Frenchmen in the town tried to kill the students by putting poison in the food. Shortly thereafter, while the students were still sobered by their narrow escape, Whitefield, the evangelist, came to New Haven again, and was invited by President Clap (so much had times changed) to preach in the new chapel. He did so, and said it "crowned the expedition." "The president came to me as I was going off in the chaise and informed me the students were so deeply impressed by the sermon that they were gone into the chapel, and earnestly entreated me to give them one more quarter of an hour's exhortation. Not unto me, O Lord, not unto me, but unto thy free and unmerited grace be all the glory." So writes the pious preacher in his journal.

During this time the curriculum was developing. The president gave "public lectures upon all those subjects which are necessary to be understood to qualify young gentlemen for the various stations and employments of life." He personally corrected the students' dispu tations, formerly left to the unpracticed hands of the tutors, and gave to natural philosophy and mathematics part of the time formerly given to logic. In physics, Rector Pierson's manuscript had given way, after

Yale Book, 1, 369.

2 From 1760 on there was at commencement a pipe of wine, free for all, paid for by seniors (Harpers 17, 11).

3 Yale Book, 1, 369 et seq.

Barbour's Historical Collections: Connecticut, 165.

"Yale Book, 1, 89.

"Yale Book, 1, 284.

7(Woolsey) Yale Book, II, p. 498 et seq. Such as the nature of civil government, the civil constitution of Great Britain, the various forms of courts, the several forms of ecclesiastical government which have obtained in the Christian church, &c. "College Book, 70.

some thirty years, to Rohault's treatise, and Clap introduced Martin's "System of the Newtonian Philosophy," which was used till out of print, in 1787. Then President Stiles asked Dr. Price to recommend a substitute. With the concurrence of Dr. Priestley, he advised Enfield's "Institutes of Natural Philosophy," which was used till 1835.1 In sophomore year, oratory, geography, and natural philosophy were introduced, and some, we learn, "make good progress in trigonometry and algebra." In junior year "many understand well, surveying, navigation, and calculation of eclipses, and some are considerable proficients in conic sections and fluxions." We see here how much advance was made in mathematics over the earlier period. It is interesting to note that, for a long time, no Greek was regularly taught but that of the New Testament.2

Still, though the course "kept the ministry in view," it was not intended exclusively for ministers nor did it supply the ministry alone. By 1750, 306 of the graduates had become clergymen and 336 laymen, and of 110 tutors in the first century of the college, 49 were laymen.3

STATE INTERVENTION.

4

Some had been alienated from the college by President Clap's invincible firmness, and so in May, 1763, a memorial was preferred to the general assembly, signed by nine men and confirmed by five clergymen in another petition, that the colony would appoint a committee of visitation "to inquire into and rectify the abuses in the College."5 The memorial stated that the general assembly was the founder of the college, "and as such had a right to appoint visitors." "This right," they said, "ought to be asserted," and they prayed for an act authorizing "an appeal from any and every sentence given by the authority of the college, to the Governor and the Council." This visitation had been first proposed in 1758, and the controversy to which it gave rise has been regarded as a precursor of the Dartmouth College case. It created great excitement." William Samuel Johnson and James Ingersoll, two of the most learned lawyers in the colony, and graduates of the college, took the side of the memorialists, and the opponents of the administration of the college hoped to overthrow it. "President Clap viewed the cause of too great consequence to be trusted in any hands but his own," and himself prepared the reply to the petitioners. In 1834 Chancellor Kent said of this:

President Clap opposed this pretension in a counter-memorial and argument, drawn boldly and with the confidence of a master, from his own mental resources. He grounded himself upon English authorities, in the true style of a well read lawyer, and successfully contended that the first trustees and donors, prior to the

J. L. Kingsley, 44 et seq.

2 Yale Book, II, 495 et seq.; T. D. Woolsey.

3 Scribner, XI, 766 et seq.

4 J. L. Kingsley, 12 et seq.

5 Scribner, XI, 770.

6.

6 Trumbull, 11, 327.

"J. L. Kingsley, 12 et seq.

8 Trumbull, 11, 328–333.

charter, were the founders and lawful visitors, and that the right of visitation passed to the trustees under the charter and then resided in the President and Fellows. 1

He conquered; the legislature did nothing, and the project of a visitation was never revived; but many became opposed to the college and there was growing disorder among the students, in some cases doubtless inspired by outsiders. In 1765 two of the three tutors became Sandemanians and Clap told them to resign, and the third, taking offense, left with them. Their successors found public disaffection so strong that they had to resign in the summer of 1766, and Clap, weary of the strife, also wished to resign at that time. The corporation begged him to wait at least till after commencement, which he did, delivering a valedictory on that day. The corporation passed a vote of thanks for his labors, and stated that they felt obliged, with grief, to accept his resig nation. He did not long survive, dying on January 7, 1767.2 Though his stubbornness, at times, harmed the college, yet for zeal, devotion, merit, and labors toward the college he deserves to be ranked among its greatest presidents.3

PRESIDENT NAPHTALI DAGGETT (1766–1777).

The day that President Clap resigned, the corporation chose Rev. James Lockwood, of Wethersfield, as president and, when he declined a month later, they appointed Naphtali Daggett, Livingston professor of divinity, as president pro tempore, an office he held for eleven years. "Though he was expected to be a controversialist, when put in office, yet he seems to have lived at peace with all.” Even the mendacious Peters, in his wondrous fable, the "General History of Connecticut," was forced to speak approvingly of him and to call him "an excellent Greek and Latin scholar and reckoned a good Calvinistic divine. Though a stranger to European politeness, yet possessing a mild temper and affable disposition, the exercise of his authority is untinctured with haughtiness. Indeed he seems to have too much candour and too little bigotry to please the corporation and retain his post many years." 5 Yet he did so, until the stormy times of the Revolution induced him to retire. As a president he was not a great success. "He had very just conceptions of the manner in which a college should be governed, but was not equally happy in the mode of administering its discipline," says his successor, President Dwight. Yet his administration is marked by increased interest in the study of English and the growth of the republican spirit; while a succession of brilliant tutors supplied any deficiencies of his. During this period men of some note were Joseph Howe, John Trumbull, the author of the almost forgotten poem Mc

Yale Book, 1, 91.

2 He left an astronomical quadrant to the college in his will. J. L. Kingsley, 44. 3J. L. Kingsley, 12 sq.

4 Dwight.

5 Peters, 160.

Fingal, Rev. Samuel Wales, later professor of divinity, Timothy Dwight, and Joseph Buckminster held the tutorial office.1

Trumbull, in the first year of his teaching, wrote a poem called the "Progress of Dulness," a satire on the college course as then pursued. It was designed, he said, "to point out, in a clear and concise manner, those general errors that hinder the advances of education. The mere knowledge of ancient languages, of the abstruser parts of mathematics, and the dark researches of metaphysics is of little advantage in any business or profession in life and it would be more beneficial in every place of public education to take pains in teaching the elements of ora. tory, the grammar of the English tongue, and the elegancies of style and composition." In the poem, college manners are gracefully described, and the picture of the student fop of the time is very cleverly drawn. Dwight wrote, during his tutorship, an epic, "The Conquest of Canaan," which long ago has been retired to upper shelves. But these tutors did more than write; 3 they inspired the students with a desire to know the masterpieces of their native tongue. As a consequence of this zeal, on October 23, 1776, when Dwight had been for five years a · tutor, the corporation voted

Upon application made to this board by Mr. Dwight, one of the tutors, at the desire of the present senior class, requesting that they might be permitted to hire the said Mr. Dwight to instruct them the current year in rhetoric, history, and the belles lettres; Upon considering the motion, the corporation, being willing to encourage the improvement of the youth in those branches of polite literature, do comply with their request, provided it may be done with the approbation of the parents, or guardians of the said class.4

A SECOND PROFESSOR.

During President Daggett's time, few gifts came from individuals. In 1770, Governor Trumbull, better known as "Brother Jonathan," gave land in Lebanon worth $100, and Mrs. Elizabeth Smith, of Wethersfield, made a gift of $200, and we notice with amusement that the owners of the sloop-of-war Satisfaction, gave the first volume of "Kennicott's Hebrew Bible." 5

From the legislature came timely aid when it was needed. In October, 1767, the college accounts were laid before the assembly, and Yale was found to be in debt £159 8s. 6d., "including a balance of £49 8s. 6d. due on chapel and repairs of old college, and coloring windows of new college and chapel are now necessary, which will cost £63 11s. 6d." To pay all this, the assembly grants £223 from that convenient duty on rum. But the college was like the sieve of the daughters of Danaus, always needing more, and the next fall Yale was in debt £122 16s. 10d., and money was "needed for a new library and for finishing the entries

1 Dexter Yale University 38, Yale Book 1, 94.

2 Yale Book, 1, 97.

3 J. L. Kingsley, 44.

Yale Book, 1, 99.

5 Baldwin's Yale College.

6 Conn. Rec., XII, 630.

of the brick college, a decent fence for the college yard, and more convenient kitchen and dining room." For the debt and finishing the library, the sum of £182 168. 10d. was given, but apparently the assembly was as little anxious then to build the Yale fence, as the faculty recently was to keep it.' In 1769, the college debt was £226 11s. 11d., but only £83 4s. 11d. were given toward it by the assembly; all these grants being from the duty on rum. The next year the college was more fortunate, and got an appropriation for the whole of its debt, £216 48. 6d.3

Encouraged by this, the corporation hoped that the legislature would endow a second professorship, and, in that hope, appointed, in September, 1770, Rev. Nehemiah Strong, professor of mathematics and natural philosophy. He was born in 1728 at Northampton, and graduated from Yale in 1755. The office he held till December, 1781, when his loyalist principles and a lack of funds led to his removal. Peters says that he is "of amiable temper, and merits his appointment."

The fair hopes of a colonial endowment of this chair found no realization; the next year the legislature made no grant at all, and, in May, 1772, it only gave the wharfage, from an extension of Long Wharf, to be built by lottery. In October of that year, "to establish such durable supports as shall best answer the great purposes of founding" the college, a joint committee of the two houses was appointed "to take into consideration the state of education and learning in said school; the government, laws, and constitution of the same, to look into the several donations at any time made for the support of said school, the revenues arising therefrom, and the state in which they now are, and devise the most effectual measures to render the institution most extensively useful, and the support thereof permanent and lasting, and to confer with the president and fellows of said college concerning the same." The only pecuniary benefit the college received was £180 108. 9d. in bills of credit of the last emission, for its debt from the past year." The next year nothing was given, but in May, 1774, £107 7s. 6d. were appropriated for the debt owed by the college in the preceding fall.R Then came the Revolution and we find little more aid from the State for twenty years.

THE END OF THE COLONIAL PERIOD.

The progress of free ideas was showing itself in Yale, as well as in the country at large. In 1768 the students were for the first time arranged on the catalogue in alphabetical order, instead of that formerly

'Conn. Rec., XIII, 104.

2 Conn. Rec., XIII, 261.

3 Conn. Rec., XIII, 396.

4 Yale Book, I, 106. Dexter Y. U., 57.

J. L. Kingsley, 19. Peters, 160.

5 Conn. Rec., XIII, 623.

& Conn. Rec., XIV, 36.

7 Conn. Rec., XIV, 63.

8 Conn. Rec., XIV, 323.