The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-07-06

that the subjects handed down as typ ical are not especially warlike-such as Why is the weather coldest when the sun is nearest us" and this absorbing problem in geography, What is the reason that, though all the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea doth not 1n- crease?" Nevertheless, those were pa- triotic days at Yale, and it is well known that the Brothers in unty were founded largely as an outlet TOT the patriotic revulsion against the mother country. It is also certain that Yale college was regarded by Brltlsh conservatism as a vertable nest of se- dition. The authorities, indeed, were absolutely sympathetic with the rebel lious spirit of the students themselves, and lost no opportunity to lmplant III their minds the conviction that Eng land was absolutely wrong and the col onies absolutely right. It was no small advantage to Hale that his early les sons i patriotism were gained from that sturdy foe of British oppression, Napthali Daggett, who, few years af- terward, when New Haven was inva- ded, shouldered a musket and marched
 
 kings troops-"exercising the right of war;" as he explained the situation to the British commander when caught
 Yale college, indeed, was very TO- bust institution in those days, and pre- cisely the place for young man of Hales bent to spend the formative pe- riod of his life. He was not the only man of his college generation to distin- guish himself in the exciting years that followed. Benjamin Talmadge, one of his dearest friends, the 'B. T. of his correspondence, dealt some hard blows, as a major of dragons, for the cause for which Hale sacrificed his life. Ezra Selden, of Lyme, afterward captain and a Stony Point hero was also in Hales class, as was James Hillhouse, who led the volunteers at the invasion of New Haven in 1779. Another was James Palsgrave Wyllys, of Hartford, an early correspondent of Hale, who, after serving his country in the field for fifteen years, was killed In Hamar's Indian defeat on the Miami in 179O. Others who were in college with Hale, and whom he must have known, were Colonel David Humphreys, Isaac Sher- man. Ebenezer Huntingdon, Captain Roger Welles and Captain Samuel Bar ker Of all these martial spirits the nearest friend of Hale's was probably Benjamin Talmadge
 Hale spent his summer vacation at the old Coventry homestead, dividing his time between farming and making love to Alace Adams-who, tradition says, was a remarkably pretty gihl, and who must have been a woman of some wit, as years afterward she be- came the center of an admiring intel lectual group including, among others, the first Timothy Dwight. Hale and Alice Adams had been members of the same household for years, as her moth CT was Deacon Hales second wife, and it was not strange that the idea of marrying should enter their minds Hale's father, however, declared that it should not be, and Nathan returned to college for his last year in some what unpleasant frame of mind. His fathers objections appear to have been practical; he had determined that Ma than should be well established before thinking of marrying. All this time Nathan had fatly made up his mind not to be Connecticut parson; he ap- piled himself earnestly to his books, however and brilliantly finished out his course At the commencement of 1773 he was the central figure. He debated in Latin with Talmadge, Ezra Selden and William Robinson, and took the affirmative in an English argument on "Whether the education of daughters be not, without any just reason, more neglected than that of men" The sub
 ject was apparently a sympathetic one to Hale at that particular time, and he is said to have made a decidedly favor- able impression upon the feminine por- ton of his audience by the zeal with which he championed their cause.- New York Evening Post.