The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1897-10-29

~NNNNS ~ INCI DOuy . SiAANt'NA'soS
downfall of the Roman Empire-Was
no such date to those then living as II
has since become. nor was any impress
sion made on mems minds commensur-
ate with the real significance OF the
event. So 1t is In our academic chro-
nology. AS conclusive evidence, recur
to this modest announcement originally
made in the catalogue of 1S47:
1T has long been felt at Yale college
to be important to furnish resident
graduates and others with the oppor-
tunity of devoting themselves to spe-
ctal branches of study, either not pro-
Vlded FOR at present or not pursued as
far as individual students may desire
Accordingly the department of philos-
ophy and arts is established. By this
simple decree the system of graduate
studies now in vogue throughout the
land was formally inaugurated. More
over, an inconspicuous postscript states
that Professors Silliman and Norton
have opened a laboratory on the col
lege grounds for the purpose of prac-
teal instruction in the applications or
science to the arts and agriculture
Thus was born the Sheffield school,
with the inheritance of an opportunity,
a desire. hope and belief, supported
by an empty purse and slight expecta-
lions.
THAT primal age which did as gold ex-
eel
Seasoned it's acorns with keen appe-
tite
And thirst to nectar turned each
springing Well"
To illustrate the evolution of this
idea, then first proclaimed among us,
to show what ingredients it included
what unexpected nurture it received,
What storm and stress 1t survived; es-
peclally to show that this idea was
planted in fertile soil by the spirit of
our age, the Zeit Geist, believing and
delighting in the study of nature and
her laws, we must consider the state
of science in the middle of the nine
teenth century, and the conditions of
liberal education then prevalent in the
United States and England. No mile
stone marks the transition from the
old to the new, yet the older men in
this assembly are conscious that this
is very different state Of society from
that of 1S47. The education, the creeds,
the industries, the commerce, and of
course the science and the arts of civ
ilized countries are changed. This is q
freer, buster, weather., more complex
and indeed a wiser and happier world
than that Of our fathers-before the
gold of California and Australia and
the diamonds of South Africa had been
discovered, or the magic spark, flashing
over land and sea, had transformed the
usages of domestic life and the pro-
cesses of international intercourse; or
the life-giving agencies the heaven
sent blessings of anaesthesia and anti
sepsis, had removed from the bed Of
pain, apprehension and distress.
1t was the middle of the century
when the doctrine of evolution, which
has pervaded every branch of natural
history, and extended it's influence to
medicine, anthropology, sociology, and
history, was publicly set forth, period,
as recent historian has shown, in
which doctrine that may be traced
to Empedocles, Heraclitus and Aristot-
lie, found tits perfect expression" in the
writings of Charles Darwin. On the
evening of July l, 1858, day almost as
memorable as that when the island of
Guanahani was revealed to Columbus,
the epoch making papers of Darwin
and Wallace were read in the Lin
naean society of London; but it should
not be forgotten that, sixteen years be-
fore, Darwin had written out a sketch
of the origin of species, and with Won
derful self-control had kept it in his
portfolio while he gave eight patient
years to the study of barnacles. We
have the authority of Sir Archibald
Geillie for saying that the two geologi-
cal chapters in the origin of species
produced the greatest revolution in
geological thought which has occurred
in our time. 1t was in 1860, when Her
bert Spencer announced the programme
of his philosophical system; but nine
years earlier he had printed volume
entitled Special States, or the condi-
lions ESSENTIAL to human happiness
specified and the first of them devel-
oped." Lyell had been for a long time
the leading authority of England in
the science of palaeontology, but the
startling book in which he demonstrate
ed the antiquity Of man did not APP
pear until five years after the publica-
ton of the Origin of Species. This Is
not the place TO discuss the far-reach-
ing and all-pervadirg influence which
proceeded from those writings, nor to
dwell on the controversies they evoked,
such as those with which we are famil-
lar between Agassiz and Gray, but I
bring these instances forward as indi-
cations of the extraordinary intellec-
tual vitality Of the middle of the nine
teenth century and of the changes in
human thought of which this school
has been the watchful observer
In the domain of physics, changes
have occurred almost as remarkable
The doctrine of the conservation and
the correlation Of forces, beginning VITA
the determination of the mechanically
equivalent of heat, was suggested and
developed between the years 1912 and
1862 by Mayer, Grove and Joule Fara-
day was then at the zenith Of his pow-
ers, Helmholtz and Kelvin at the out
set of their illustrious careers But it
was far back as 1880 when Joseph Hen
ry, then a school master in a country
town, reached those discoveries in cleo
tro-nagnetisrn which made the tele-
graph a proximate certa 'nty and
brought into the Intercourse of man
kind revolution almost as great as the