The Story Of The Great Universities

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 219, 16 September 1939, Page 2

The Story Of The Great Universities

A "-Battle Of Books" Led To The Founding Of Yale

IA DOW Y forms were stealing J) silently one January night at llie beginning of the eighteenth entury towards a square, well- ' ■ uilt house in the little New Eng*nd town of Saybrook, Connectiut. In front was a line of burly onstatales; behind, the tall, unmistakable form of the sheriff; while faintly to the rear came the .-reak of wagons and the snorts ind snuffles of the oxen which drew them. A raid was being made on the minister's house.

After a whispered colloquy with the heriflf tile constables suddenly made a concerted rush on the stout wooden door. Mattering it down in spite of protests from the minister and hit* household, uho had been aroused by the din- and were statiding on the stairs in their night attire, they mado their way to a room which was literally piled to the celling with book*. These they proceeded to carry out of the house and load on th« ox carta, until none was IctU

ByGeorge Fairholme

The noise of the onslaught, meanwhile, had roused .Saybrook's sleeping inhabitant*. Before the last book had been loaded on to the cart* they had rallied round to the assistance of their minister. In the confusion which eusuod the oxen were turned loose, the enrt# overturned, and several of the bridges across which the carts would have to travel '.vero torn down. When eventually the clamour died down the sheriff found that one Quarter of the books had entirely disappeared, and they were never seen again.

thin "Battle of tlio Hooks," (utilizing though It, wit*, proved to lio one of tlio chief factors in the founding of Yalo I niversity. Heforo it occurred tlio only cdiicntioual (>«lnMisliinent in Connecticut colony was tlio parsonage of one Abraham Picrson, which win* attended I'.V only thirteen students in five years. Anxious to foster interest in a college which several clergymen linil proponed l« found in Connecticut, the colony's Loudon agent attempted to make a collectlon of hooks to form the nucleus of a library for it. Itichard Steele himself presented his "Tntlers" and "Spectutors," while Sir fsaac Newton handed iner the second edition of his "I'rincipla," in which, for the first time, he iiiiii«>ull<'(•(l the discovery of his law of gravity. Other famous men gave editions of their works, until over a thousand volumes were collected and sent o\er to Now Kngland. At Hint the lilirary wiw given into the care of Abraham' Pierson, and his p:ii sunnue became known as "Tlio Col-Ic'.-e," 11111. when he died and the students were transferred to a la rye house .it Saylirook, the books went with them. In spite ill' the few students, however, the building was not big enough for them, and thoy had to be boarded out

in scattered farmhouses. Renewed appeals were made, and at last in the autumn of 1717 the (ieneral Assembly decided upon a grant, several benefactors came forward with gifts of money, and n site for the college was chosen at New Haven. Work was begun on October H.

The Saybrook College broke up, but there was not yet room in the New Haven building to house the books, and they were left in the cure of Thomas Buckingham, the minister of Saybrook. Later, when the new library was finished, lie was asked for them. He refused point-blank to hand them over.

"They were given to Saybrook, not to New Haven," was his argument, and nothing would make him change his mind. At last the sheriff and constables of Connecticut made the midnight raid on the parsonage which resulted in the loss of a quarter of the books that had been entrusted to Buckingham's cure.

Such a loss, in the days when books were far more expensive to, produce and therefore far more valuable than they are to-day, was a great one for the college, and one which it could ill afTohl in its precarious financial st-ate. Further oprieals for money were made, and at length a certain Klihu Yale, formerly the Coventor of Fort St. George in Madras, and the owner of fabulous ill-gotten riches, was persuaded to help.

He was one of London's wealthiest citizens, and the Assembly did not question how he had acquired his wealth, although down-trodden Kajahs of India would have had- a tale to tell if they were asked. In gratitude for the £.">OOO worth of merchandise which he sent over, they decided to call the new college by the name of her greatest benefactor, and it has remained Vale College ever since.

The books were once more to rear their ugly heads before they finally settled down to an inconspicuous life in the new library at Yale. Anxious to make as large a collection as possible, the Ixjndon agent had not troubled to see that they were carefully selected. Fired by curiosity, the students took to stealing thein surreptitiously to their rooms and reading them by flickering candlelight.

Soon, wlien they discovered what fascinating new doctrines were contained therein, the reading grew more secret and even more feverish. For hours, when they should have been asleep, the undergraduates bout their heads over the works of Copernicus, Newton and Locke, imbibing not only new scientific theories which quite contradicted the teaching of their tutors, but episcopal theology also. Soon the college that had been founded by the staunchest Congregationalists that New Kngland had ever produced, was filled with secret adherents of the ''heretical" Church of Kngland.

The rumour that Yale was a hotbed of heresy soon spread. But worse was to follow. The rector himself, the Rev. Timothy Cutler, found himself in sympathy with his recalcitrant undergraduates. Several of his tutors sided with him. And when Commencement Day came round, and he had to preach his customary sermon to the assembled governors and parents, he showed unmistakably where his sympathies lay.

The upshot of it all was that Cutler and the tutors were dismissed, and a new rector with sworn Protestant leanings elected.

Once the college had settled down to a normal, if somewhat strict, existence, the number of students soon increased; new grounds and buildings were added; and Vale soon became known as the I'niversity of Connecticut. In spite of the strict religious routine enforced on the undergraduates, or possildv becftuse of it, ragging, or "pranking."' as it was called, was a very . common occurrence. Dogs and squawking roosters were smuggled into the chapel ami let loose just as the preacher was in the midst of a particularly high sounding passage. Daring climbs were made up the bell tower to gag the bell or attach long cords to the clapper. Snowball fights between freshmen and sophomores often interrupted the more serious business of lectures.

Kaoll year, as a protest against the hated subject of mathematics, a compulsory part of the curriculum, the ceremony of the burial of Euclid was performed in the college grounds. A solemn band of executioners marched forward and laid the detested volume on the ground. Bed hot pokers were stuck through it. And it was burned on a vast funeral pyre, round which the undergraduates danced with all the fren/.y of a native religious orgy.

Disputes and' brushes between "Townsmen" and the "Gownsmen," as in the English University cities of

Oxford and Cambridge, soon became a well-known sight in Xew Haven. One day, however, the mock battle which usually occurred whenever members of the opposite faction met culminated in a really serious tight.

It began in the local theatre, when to the fury of the townsmen in the gallery, the students in the stalls stood up for a long time pulling on their gowns and obscuring the view of the stage. As they went out at the end of the performance the mob attacked them. There was a sudden wild riot, and a scream, and one of the townsmen lay <lving. stabbed to the heart.

In the pitched battle which followed the undergraduates managed to reach the college, followed by the yelling mob, now infuriated beyond all control by the death of their comrade. The gownsmen barricaded themselves in, and prepared to stand a siege. The townsmen, not to be outdone, surged in a body towards the town arsenal, removed two cannon, and trained them on the college.

For a moment it seemed as though civil war was about to break out in Xew Haven. Unce firearms were used, there was no knowing when the enraged mob would stop. But now the police decided that it was time for them to take a hand. Calmly they walked through the shouting crowds and spiked the two guns. The attackers were now without means of nttack.

(iraduallv. as night drew on and the air grew colder, the enthusiasm of the mob to avenge their murdered fellow faded. When dawu broke, and the student* looked out from their bolted doors and windows, the square was deserted, and only two forlorn and useless cannon remained to tell of Yale's most serious riot between Town ami Gown.

The next day one of the undergraduates confessed that it was he who

had been responsible for the townsman's death. But he insisted that the deed had been done in self-defence, that it was the dead man's own knife, in fact, that had been used. Jlis case was tried, and his story proved by several witnesses. He was found "not guilty."

It was not until 1887 that Vale was officially given the name of "university." As early as 1813 various professional schools had begun to group themselves about the college, but they had no official position until 1843, when the law school was authorised to give degrees. The theological school was given similar powers 24 years later.

Women were admitted to Yale eight years before the close of the century. Strangely enough, the chronicler of the period records that their entry

"scarcely affected college life at all." Jn spite of its conservative leanings, as compared with the more liberal and go-ahead Harvard, Vale was the first New Knglaml university to admit women on equal terms with men.

Shiny an old Yale student or professor has remarked on the keen competition that existed in the college ill matters literary, athletic, political and social, a rivalry keener than iu any other American college. It culminated in the formation of secret societies, to be elected into the most exclusive of which was the nightly prayer of the ambitious freshmen. To be a member of the "Skull and Bones," the "Wolf's Head," or the "Scroll and Key," was the greatest honour that Yale could offer.

hen election day came round the candidates, almost shaking in their shoes from nervous anticipation, assembled with the rest of the college on the campus, as the grounds are called in America, tine by one solemn seniors appeared from the halls of the various societies, silently walked forward, and tapped the fortunate candidate on the shoulder. A burst of applause greeted each election, and a new hero, who might in the future become one of America's noblest citizens, entered into his kingdom.