The following sketch of the history of Yale’s graduate school was published in 1898. What would become the graduate “seminaries” of the respective disciplines were organized as extracurricular “clubs”. The introduction of graduate fellowships and scholarships is of interest as in the early openness Yale showed with respect to graduate admission for women. Arthur Twining Hadley enters the Yale scene as professor of political science and later of political economy as well as serving as the Graduate Dean.
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CHAPTER VI
The Graduate School
GRADUATE instruction, apart from that leading to one of the three “learned professions,” [i.e. clergy, law and medicine] was probably not thought of at Yale before the present century. Its beginnings can perhaps be traced in the comprehensive plans of President Dwight, who, as one of the founders of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1799, showed his desire to encourage independent research, and the acquisition of knowledge in other fields than those which had hitherto been almost exclusively cultivated. “Resident Graduates” came here for study during his term of office, but it is not known to what extent their studies were other than theological. The catalogue of 1814, contains the names of seventeen, the first official record of their presence, and the list is continued in succeeding catalogues, rising in one year to thirty-one, until 1824, when it suddenly disappears. But in that year, “Theological Students” are entered for the first time, and the presumption is that they are simply the “Resident Graduates” appearing now under their proper descriptive title. In1826, appear the names of four Resident Graduates, and as the students of the three professional Schools are all separately entered, we doubtless have here the first reliable list of non-professional graduate students. Three of these were Bachelors of Arts from Amherst College, one being Charles U. Shephard, afterward for many years a Professor at Amherst, and well known for his mineralogical collections. For the next twenty years, with a few exceptions, lists of graduate students appear in the Catalogue, the largest number for anyone year being seven. Among these were Robert McEwen and Gordon Hall, afterward prominent clergymen; B. G. Northrup, the well-known Superintendent of Education in Connecticut; Noah Porter, James D. Dana and Denison Olmsted, Professors at Yale; and William L. Kingsley, for many years Editor of the “New Englander.” The instruction of this class of students is known to have appealed especially to the scholarly enthusiasm of President Woolsey during the years of his Professorship, and their claims always received his special attention. Professor Thacher also, with his usual forethought, expressed at an early date his desire that provision might be made for them.
In 1841, an important step was taken in the appointment of Edward E. Salisbury as Professor of Arabic and Sanskrit. This was the first provision made for the instruction of graduate students by other than College Professors whose attention was mainly given to undergraduates. It was also the first recognition in this country (if the importance of Sanskrit in the study of language, and, so far as demand for instruction went, was in advance of the time. For eight years no student presented himself; then two came. They were William D. Whitney and James Hadley. The former had taken his first degree at Williams College, and came to Yale for graduate study, attracted by Professor Salisbury, who was the only Professor of Sanskrit in the country. He studied here one year, in 1849-50, then went to Germany for three years. He returned to Yale in 1854, and took the Chair of Sanskrit which had been vacated for him by Professor Salisbury, who retained the Chair of Arabic two years longer.
Professor Whitney’s appointment came at a time when the Graduate School was beginning to emerge clearly to view as a distinct section of the new Department of Philosophy [344] and the Arts. This, as is elsewhere stated, commenced in 1847, and was opened to “graduates and others.” That year there were eleven students, five of whom were undergraduates. Contrary to expectation, the number of the latter greatly increased, so that in 1852, it was found best to classify them in separate Schools of Chemistry and Engineering, leaving two graduates who were not pursuing those studies. These were Daniel C. Gilman and Hubert A. Newton. In 1854, the year of Professor Whitney’s appointment, the courses in Chemistry and Engineering were brought together under the title “Yale Scientific School,” and the following year a scheme of lectures and instruction designed especially for graduates not in the Scientific School appears.
In 1861. the degree of Doctor of Philosophy was conferred for the first time, and its recipients were Eugene Schuyler, James M. Whiton and Arthur W. Wright. These three scholars, since so well known in their respective lines of work, were, so far as academic form goes, the first finished product of the Yale Graduate School. Yale was the first institution in the United States to confer this degree on the basis of at least two years’ resident graduate work, with a final examination and thesis giving evidence of high attainment. It furnished to young men of ability and ambition, but moderate means, the opportunity to earn this most highly prized of all academic degrees without going abroad, and at the same time gave a notable impulse to the cause of advanced scholarship in the United States.
The award of the degree in 1861, gave consistency and dignity to the courses leading to it, though much remained to be done in the way of development and further organization of a Graduate School. In 1872, the Department of Philosophy and the Arts was re-organized, as elsewhere mentioned, so as to include all the sub-departments of instruction outside the three Professional Schools, and the graduate students, both of letters and science, in the new Department, were entered in a single list in the Catalogue. At the same time the Graduate School was given a definite organization by the appointment of an Executive Committee to “receive and record the names of applicants for instruction, and judge and approve the courses of study proposed.” Shortly after, the number of degrees to be awarded in the School was increased. These at first were Doctor of Philosophy and Civil Engineer. In 1873, that of Mechanical Engineer was added. In 1874, the degree of Master of Arts, hitherto given in course to Bachelors three years after graduation on payment of five dollars, was rescued from its comparative worthlessness as a certificate of longevity and pecuniary ability, and was made to depend upon one year of non-professional study. In 1897, the degree of Master of Science was established.
In 1892, the organization of the School was further improved by the appointment of Professor A. T. Hadley as Dean. At the same time a step of much significance was taken, in the opening of the School to the graduates of Women’s Colleges, who were invited to come here and study for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. This practical recognition of the needs of women, and of their right to participate in the advantages of the more highly specialized courses to be found only at the larger Universities, was accorded to them in New England first at Yale. This move was received with much interest in academic circles, and has met with a fair measure of success. The matter of pecuniary assistance, combined with honorable recognition of merit, was also taken up. Five fellowships of $400 each, and twenty scholarships of $100 each, were established by the Corporation. These were to be open to all members of the School, though the fellowships were to be given by preference to students in their second year who had shown marked ability in the first. In 1895, Professor [345] Phillips succeeded Professor Hadley as Dean, and was established in a convenient office where he zealously looks after the interests of the School. In 1896-7, its membership was two hundred and twenty-seven, including thirty-one women, an increase of fourfold in ten years.
The Faculty of the School consists of the Professors of the four sub-departments of the Department of Philosophy and the Arts, with Lecturers and Instructors wherever available, and University Professors whose time is given mostly to research. The latter have been few in number, owing to the very limited resources of the University. One of Yale’s greatest needs to-day is large endowment for University Professorships which will furnish opportunities for lives devoted to the highest work of the scholar, such as are hardly possible when time and strength are mainly given to undergraduate teaching. It is no disparagement of the work of the teacher to say that in practice it is apt to interfere with the best work of the scholar. Both are necessary to the highest usefulness of a University, but in the assignment of work, the best results can be obtained by a judicious release of some from undergraduate teaching, rather than by the requirement of substantially the same amount from all. The University Professorship furnishes the golden opportunity for advancing the bounds of knowledge along scholarly lines.
Mention has been made of the appointments of Professors Salisbury and Whitney. In 1866, Othniel C. Marsh was appointed Professor of Palaeontology. His work has been done mainly in connection with the Peabody Museum. In 1871, Josiah W. Gibbs was appointed Professor of Mathematical Physics. In 1877, Samuel Wells Williams, the well-known and eminent student of Chinese language and history, accepted a Professorship of Chinese, which he kept until his death in 1884. In 1886, William R. Harper came as Professor of Semitic Languages, and Arthur T. Hadley was appointed Professor of Political Science. These appointments awakened much interest, and the membership of the School was nearly doubled in five years. At the end of that time Professor Harper left to assume the duties of President of the Chicago University, and Professor Hadley was transferred to the Chair of Political Economy in the College. In 1895, Edward W. Hopkins was appointed Professor of Sanskrit to succeed Professor Whitney, who died in 1894.
From the date last given it will be seen that Professor Whitney was connected with the Graduate School for forty years, which is substantially the whole period of its existence. In a certain sense he was the gift of Professor Salisbury to Yale. It was Professor Salisbury who as his teacher in 1850, discovered his special gifts and encouraged him to cultivate them, then in 1854, made a place for him by giving up to him a portion of his own work, and again in 1869, made it possible for him to remain here by endowing for him the Chair of Sanskrit and Comparative Philology. In that year President Eliot signalized the first month of his Presidency by inviting Professor Whitney to Harvard, and the latter would have felt constrained by financial considerations involving the welfare of his family to accept, had it not been for the prompt and generous action of his former teacher and life-long friend. Concerning this invitation Professor Lanman of Harvard has said, “It reflects no less credit upon Mr. Eliot’s discernment of character and attainments than upon Mr. Whitney’s surpassing gifts, that the youthful President should turn to him, among the first, for aid in helping to begin the great work of transforming the Provincial College into a National University.” Professor Whitney gladly remained at Yale and made it a centre of Philological study for the country. Of his work here Dr. [346] Ward of the “Independent” has said, “What Harvard did for the science of life in America through Agassiz, Yale did for Indo-European philology through Whitney.”
Important agencies in carrying on the work of the School are the clubs, of which there are now eleven, namely, the Classical, Mathematical, Political Science, Philosophical, Semitic, Biblical, Comparative Religion, Modern Language, English, Physics Journal and Engineers, Clubs. The older ones are in a measure revivals of earlier organizations for the promotion of original research; but in their present form they have appeared within the past twenty years, and most of them quite recently. Their membership consists of the instructors and graduate students in the department of study indicated by the name of the club. Their meetings furnish opportunities for interchange of views between teachers and pupils, and thus supplement in a most useful way the more formal instruction of the class-room. In the language clubs, authors are read and discussed. In nearly all, papers are presented which embody the results of individual investigations, and the most important of these have been subsequently read before various larger organizations and printed in their transactions. The Physics Journal Club does not aim at research, but has for its object the reading and discussion of the various periodicals in the field of Physics. Several of the clubs have rooms set apart for their use, and the Classical Club is especially favored in having a commodious, well-lighted room, and a good working-library of its own. For some years it occupied the upper story of the “Old Chapel ;” but when Phelps Hall was completed, it moved into the top story of that beautiful building, where it enjoys its present quarters, exceptionally well arranged and located for quiet uninterrupted work. The opening of the club-room in 1896 was observed with public exercises in the Chapel, where an address was delivered by Professor Gildersleeve of Johns Hopkins University, followed by a social gathering of classical scholars from different parts of the country. During the evening, announcement was made that Mr. Sears of Boston had purchased and presented to the University the valuable classical library of the late Ernst Curtius, the distinguished historian of Greece. This had been pronounced by competent authority in Berlin, “the most valuable library in its department which had been offered for sale in Germany since 1870.” A considerable part of this choice collection of books was placed on the shelves of the Classical Club, where they “increase in a marked degree the facilities for advanced work in the classics.”
A part of the work of the Graduate School is done in connection with the American Classical School at Athens. The Soldiers’ Memorial Fellowship at Yale is conferred upon a Yale graduate who has shown special proficiency in Greek. It may be held five years, and a part or all of that time may be spent at the School in Athens. During ten of the fifteen years since the School started, Yale has been represented by six Soldiers’ Memorial Fellows. Four other Yale men have studied there, so that out of the seventy-three students going from the twenty-three Colleges co-operating in the support of the School, ten have gone from Yale, a number exceeded by Harvard alone. Four of the Directors also, including Professor Richardson, the present head of the School, have been graduates of Yale, which from the first has been one of the most active promoters of the enterprise. A similar school for Latin classical study has been started at Rome, and Professor Peck of Yale is to serve as its Director during the year 1898-9.
The Graduate School claims to be non-professional. This claim rests partly on the fact that the School does not train its students for one of the three traditional “learned [347] professions.” It also rests partly on the theory that the School seeks to promote culture, to strengthen scholarly habits of life and thought, and to widen the fields of knowledge, quite apart from any use which may be made of these acquisitions as capital in the ordinary work of life. It is earnestly hoped that this ideal may be realized in future years, when a goodly number of young men and women may be able and willing to lengthen the period given to a general education before commencing special preparation for a particular calling. At present, however, the School is in fact largely a professional one, furnishing such an equipment as is most useful to the teacher. Its great academic prize, the Ph.D. degree, is sought mainly by those who expect to teach, and is valued largely because it helps its possessor to secure a College Professorship. Such being the case, attention is naturally called to the success of a School in fitting its students for the higher walks of the teacher’s calling, and in this respect the record of the Yale Graduate School is a most honorable one. In the Chicago University, out of fifty-nine Doctors of Philosophy on the Faculty above the grade of Instructor, eleven received their degree from Yale, a larger number than from any other institution, Harvard coming next with six. In all, over one hundred and thirty Professors in different Colleges and Universities have studied at the Yale Graduate School since 1860, but not all have completed the course for a degree. They are widely distributed in the United States, the British Provinces and Japan.
During the past ten years, a number of graduates of the Swedish Colleges, Augustana and Gustavus Adolphus, have been to Yale for their Doctor’s degree. The movement of these Swedes to Yale, especially in view of the fact that most of them have specialized in Philosophy and Biblical studies, has signified more than the individual preferences of the persons concerned. It has been from the first the subject of much interest and careful deliberation in the Swedish Lutheran body in the United States, and the confidence thus shown in the University opens for the latter a most promising and important field of usefulness.
In Japan the name and work of Yale are well-known through the gifted men who have come here for study, mainly in the Law and Graduate Schools, and on returning to their own country have occupied high positions in political and educational life. An interesting episode in the relations of Yale to educational work in Japan was the threefold invitation extended to Professor Ladd by the Trustees of the Doshisha, the teachers of the summer school at Hakone, and certain gentlemen of Tokio who were interested in education. Complying with this invitation, Professor Ladd spent the summer of 1892 in Japan, delivering lectures on Philosophy, especially the Philosophy of Religion. His reception was most cordial, and his lectures, given three times in as many places, were well received by large and attentive audiences. One result of his visit was additional interest in Yale, and desire to secure its advantages, which have brought an increased attendance of Japanese students. It is safe to say that, of American Universities, Yale occupies at present the first position of influence in Japan, and it seems reasonable to believe that the years spent here by men now in influential positions in that country have helped to prepare the way for the liberal policy of the Empire which throws open to Christians the highest offices in the State. Nor, in the matter of maintaining peaceful and friendly relations between the United States and Japan, can it be a matter of indifference that scholarly men of the two countries have worked together, and have learned to respect and trust each other.
Source: University and their Sons. History, Influence and Characteristics of American Universities with Biographical Sketches and Portraits of Alumni and Recipients of Honorary Degrees. Editor-in-chief, General Joshua L. Chamberlain, LL.D. Boston: R. Herdon Company. Vol 1 (1898)
Image Source: Arthur Twining Hadley. Ibid, Vol 2, p. 562.
