The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-09-28

hand, and Obituary Records" (pub- hshed annually since 1S60) and mod ern "Class-books" on the other hand, is not very broad. Two members of the Yale class of 1797 published half century after graduation thin vol ume of biographical sketches of their classmates and this has had many suc- cessors The first published "Obitu- ary record, prepared for the Yale alumni meeting in July, 1860, opens with sketch of the life of the Rev. T. M. Cooley, who was member of the class of 1792, and thus almost ad- mitted to the volume before us. MT. DeXter's work has now reached pe- riod where family traditions and pa- pers are fairly abundant. For exam pie, three children of member of the class of 17S7 are now alive, the son
 being himself an honored graduate of the class of 1886.
 The years included in this fourth volume are the first Of President Stiles administration, a period parti- cularly familiar to Mr. Dexter, as the editor of Dr. Stiles voluminous Lit erary Diary" The learned president clearly had the confidence of the com l munity, and Yale was then the largest college of the country, as, indeed, it continued to be through fnost of the 1 first two-thirds of the nineteenth cen tury The numbers varied curiously
 In 17S5, 70 were graduated at Yale, and 42 at Harvard, The total number of graduates in these fourteen years, however, was distinctly larger at
 Yale. The beginning of President Stiles administration was in troublous times. For six years no public com naencement was held. In the year 1 177S-79, the winter vacation, instead of covering the usual three weeks, continued for seven weeks and half on account of the difficulty of obtain- ing flour and other provisions for the supply of the College Commons" In July of the same year, the British troops landed in the suburbs of New Haven. The students were dismissed and although Q company of them as- sisted in checking the British advance they were not assembled again for study, and lost about two months of the college year. The first sketch of this volume is of Joel Barlow, author of The Vision of Columbus" The Hasty Pudding" and important pollti- cal works, and United States minister to France at 8 critical time. Many | other familiar names meet the eye as one turns the pages--Jeremiah Ma son, Abiel Holmes Gather of the poet) Joshua Meigs, Noah Webster, Jedediah Morse, Judge Lyman of Northampton, Judge Gould of the Litchfleld Law School, the Rev. Joseph Badger Chan cellor Kent of the Commentaries !" Edward Dorr Griffin, Peter B. Porter of Niagara Falls, and so on. In one class that of 17S5, were Samuel Hun tington and Return Jonathan Meigs, each of whom in turn, was first chief justice and then Governor of Ohio. Indeed, this volume bears abundant 1 evidence of the close relations be- tween Connecticut and the Western settlements, and families in the Cen tral States will find a personal interest in it. Of the 543 graduates here in- | eluded, 443 were born in Connecticut, ! but only 256 of the class made their home there; the rest went West or South. College men century ago were not so plentiful that their light was to be hid under busheI, but when we think how many of our ool- lege aequaintances disappear and are are not to be found by even the most persistent class secretaries, we may
 well wonder that MT Dexter has had
 to confess himself wholly foiled in
 only two of the 543 Yale graduates be-
 tween 177S and 1792 Both of these
 men came from Dartmouth college
 near the close of their course. and
 evidently did not long continue thei,
 relations with Yale, In spite of the
 large number of persons who inspire
 no special interest, MT. Dexter's style