The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-06-18


 fancy. For more than two hundred years thereafter it was practically the only, what We now call, secondary school in the city. While the dream of Governor Hopkins that the. school which his benefcence made possible should develop into a college for the colony did not come true, and this hap { py lot has fallen upon the institution endowed by his nephew, Elihu Yale, the Grammar school has always been a devoted handmaid of her more favored
 younger sister, and I hope will be able
 to continue this service so long as the
 university shall abide.
 The school has of course passed through varying fortunes. This site, at first on the Green, has been changed at various times, finally to the spot which I 1t has occupied for some sixty years. 1 Some of the events of the early days I are of interest, but I must pass them here mi orider to come to the time of immediate moment. One of the old frectors of the school has written me that in 1864, when he came to that po- sition, the school numbered but five pu-
 pills, and of this total enrolment, twen- ty per cent, as he expressed it, was
 carried away by an epidemic that
 ragged in the city during his first year.
 The school soon recovered its earlier
 numbers, however, and reached it's gen.
 ith iiniiii ithiiis regard about thrty-five
 years ago, when, as the records attest,
 it numbered some two hundred and
 twenty. The rapid development of the
 public high schools began at about this
 same time, and as natural result
 Hopkins soon found it harder to hold
 it's own. That the public high schools
 have thrived and grown is to my mind
 the most pleasing phenomenon. The
 growth of such schools both in New Haven and elsewhere throughout our country ifs one of the most encouraging
 eviideiinces of the progress of our de-
 mocracy and augurs well for our future
 advance in prosperity and upriigihiiti-
 ness. But what I wanted to say at
 this point is that the rise and prosper | ity of private schools, in New Haven
 of the Hopkins Grammar school, is no
 less important. The public high school
 is the peoples college" and while it
 prepares, and I believe should prepare, boys for the advanced courses of the
 college it's principal work is and should
 be to. give as a thorough and system
 nautical course of study as the time permits both classical and scientific
 to the boy and girl whose school days lend when he or she leaves the high school. The private school on the oth- CT hand is at liberty to devote itself
 more directly to the preparation of I boys or girls for college, and this is
 what I understand to be the function; this is the function of the Hopkins
 Grammar school. More than ninety per cent. of the boys who go forth from Hopkins, quite two thousand there have been of them, enter some depart ment of Yale university, and in some of this work the Hopkins Grammar school deserves, and I trust has, the heartiest support of all the citizens of New Haven who believe in higher edu- cation. The sister schools of Hopkins at Hadley and at Hartford have been absorbed into the public high schools; the same fate at varioiuis times has
 been proposed for the Hopkins Cram
 mar school of New Haven This pro- POadl LAc U uSltGS diiC CNcW 5yDuY or alumni have steadfastly rejected, be- llieving that there is an independent rule to be played by this venerable
 school and that it would be a perma- nent misfortune for an educational institution with the prestige of two
 hundred and fifty years to resign it's individuality under the stress of tempo rary vicissitude. The control of the school is vested in board of seven trustees This board is self perpetua- ting and has included among it's mem- bers men of worth and renown, whom
 New Haven has most delight to honor. Their one delight has been and is to conduct as good school as possible.
 One of the principal reasons why I am speaking on this subject tonight is that l may emphasize the fact that Hopkins is not in any respect mere money-making enterprise If at any time the school has made money it's funds have gone into the general treas ury to provide for the rainy day. If it has run behind the trustees and a few intimate friends have put their hands into their pockets to make good
 the deficit If I am properly cognizant of the present situation, the prospect
 for the future is more bright. The
 number of students in the school has of late been steadily increasing. This year one hundred and one boys have
 been enrolled in regular course Of these about one-thrd are from other
 places than New Haven; some from distant states, some even from distant lands. This number, while not up to
 the mark of thirty years ago, under
 different conditions, iisi as good as it
 has been for ten years, and may be re- garded as distinctly encouraging.
 During the past year eight men of ad- vanced scholarship have been engaged