The times., 1899-05-28
The New President of YnIe.

The selection OF Prof Arthur I. Had
ley as the successor of President Dwight
of Yale University is in one way very
significant One of the traditions of
Yale is that the president must be Con-
gregational minister, and this tradition
has remained unbroken since the founding
of the college President Hadley has spent
no time on theology, and a great deal of
time on political economy.
There were very good reasons why the
men who founded most of our American
colleges should be clergymen, as they
were. Two hundred years ago, in this
country. the clergymen were, on the
whole, the most learned and enlightened
body of men IN the country, SO far as edu-
cational matters went. They were not
statesmen, of course. but the object of the
college at that time was not the education
of statesmen, but the training of the stu
dent in the classics. in literature. and to
very limited extent in the sciences. The
training for practical life came afterward.
There was plenty of time for that, for in
many of the old-time colleges the course
was scarcely more than an academy course
of the present time, and boys entered at
fourteen and went out into the world at
eighteen or twenty. Some of them were
destined to be clergymen, some lawyers,
and some doctors. For the clergymen and
the physicians there was a supplementary
course of training. The lawyers began to
acquire practical knowledge of the world
under some shrewd old barrster, and
some of them eventually became states
men. But the clergy controlled the college
to a very great extent. Though We had no
Established Church. the clergyman in all
Of the thirteen colonies was regarded as
something of an authority not only in
spiritual, bat in practical matters. and
very often he was shrewd and wise judge
of these things. A man does not become
the confidant and adviser of an entire par
ish of pioneer folk without learning some
thing about human nature and the govern
ment thereof.
But as the college began to add scien-
tihc and economic studies to its course
while still retaining the classics. the age
of graduation moved along. slowly but
surely, till many of the students in the
senior class were between twenty and
twenty-five years old. Thus college came
to be regarded as preparation for life. 1t
was half f-uneonsciously recognized that
such preparation ought to be made effec-
tive, and that il could not be so if no at
tention we're paid to practical affairs. So
it has come to pass that many young COL
lege men are now giving careful and ear
nest study to the problems of government
Of heredity, OF social systems, of ethnoIogy
and a dozen other things which their
fathers never studied. The ideal OF the
college man is slowly but surely changing
He was once person separate from the
uneducated mass, to be looked up to, and
regarded with reverence or contempt, ac-
cording to his capacity. If he did not, as
the phrase goes, amount to anything" in
spite of his education, he was not respect
ed if he made good use of his learning he
was looked up to as Of a superior type
Sensible people have always recognized
the fact that there are some things which
the educated man can learn from the un-
| educated-eyen from the savage; and this
idea is now becoming general Hence we
have men like Wyckof1, tramping the coun-
Try in rags. that he may the better under.
stand the true nature OF the labor problem:
we have university men fraternizing with
the self-educated writer. or business man.
OF farmer. to ascertain things which they.