Yale University,
The third of the higher institutions of learning established in the
English-American colonies.
Such an institution was contemplated by the planters soon after the founding of the New Haven colony, but their means were too feeble, and the project was abandoned for a time.
It was revived in 1698, and the following year ten of the principal clergymen were appointed trustees to found a college.
These held a meeting at New Haven and organized an association of eleven ministers, including a rector.
Not long afterwards they met.
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Yale College, 1793. |
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when each minister gave some books for a library, saying, “I give these books for founding a college in
Connecticut.”
The General Assembly granted a charter (Oct.
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Seal of Yale University. |
9, 1701), and on Nov. 11 the trustees met at
Saybrook, which they had selected as the place for the college, and elected
Rev. Abraham Pierson rector.
The first
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The old fence at Yale. |
student was
Jacob Hemmingway, who entered in March, 1702, and was alone for six months, when the number of students was increased to eight, and a tutor was chosen.
The site being inconvenient, in 1716 it was voted to establish the school permanently at New Haven, and the first college building was begun soon afterwards.
It was finished in 1718, and at the “commencement” in September of that year it was named Yale College, in compliment to
Elihu Yale, its most eminent benefactor.
See
Yale, Elihu.
This name was confined to that college building, but in 1745, when a new charter was given, it was applied to the whole institution.
Its laws were printed in Latin in 1748, and this was the first book printed in New Haven.
The government of the college was administered by the rector, or president, and ten fellows, all of whom were clergymen, until 1792, when the governor and lieutenant-governor of the State and six senior assistants of the council were made fellows ex-officio, making the corporation consist of eighteen members besides the president.
In 1871-72 the legislature of Connecticut passed a law providing for the substitution of six graduates of the college for the six councillors, to be selected by the alumni.
In 1887 the college became a university.
The university has a scientific school (Sheffield), museum of natural history, picture-gallery, extensive mineral and geological cabinets, and a library containing over 258,000 volumes, exclusive of pamphlets.
In Yale University particular at-
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Osborn Hall, Yale University. |
tention is given to the
Oriental languages, and its curriculum embraces nearly the whole circle of science and literature.
The bi-centennial of the university was celebrated Oct. 21-23, 1901.
In 1900 it reported 264 professors and instructors; 2,500 students in all departments; 19,645 graduates; twenty-four fellowships; forty-nine scholarships; and an aggregate endowment of $4,650,000.
