YALE IN PUBLIC LIFE

By

HIRAM BINGHAM

When Yale was founded, the charter which the Connecticut ministers obtained from the Legislature of the Colony set forth the fact that "several well-disposed and public-spirited persons have expressed by petition their earnest desires that full liberty and privilege be granted for the founding, suitably endowing and ordering a Collegiate School . wherein youth may be instructed in the arts and sciences [and] fitted for public employment, both in church and civil state."' It was the evident intention of our founders that the sons of Yale should be prepared for public service. To some people this specific devotion to service for the state seems strange considering that the founders were Congregational ministers "robust in theology as became ministers of those days." We must admit, however, that they had clear vision and builded wisely.

Two hundred years later at the Bicentennial Celebration, Colonel Roosevelt, then President of the United States, himself a Harvard man, paid this tribute to the sons of Eli:-"I have never yet worked at a task worth doing, that I did not find myself working shoulder to shoulder with some son of Yale. I have never yet been in any struggle for righteousness or decency, that there were not men of Yale to aid me and give me strength and courage." The words of President Roosevelt were appreciated. Yale graduates have always taken pride in the number of their brothers who have been influential in the public life of the republic. We have had a President and Vice-President, more than a score of Cabinet Officers, three score Senators of the

United States, nearly three score Governors of states, and many members of Congress and of our diplomatic and consular service.

Even before the days of the republic, Yale men played a conspicuous part in public life. The record is a source of satisfaction and inspiration. Accordingly this seems an appropriate time to name some of the more distinguished among those who have toiled for the good of the state, although to speak of all who deserve mention would take far more space than is at my disposal. As has been truly said, "In every department of life in which faithful service has been rendered, some son of Yale has written his name near the summit." Let the roll, however abridged, be called in chronological order :

In the Class of 1737 was Philip Livingston, destined to be a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress, Speaker of the Provincial Assembly and signer of the Declaration of Independence.-In 1741 graduated William Livingston, first Governor of New Jersey, who served in the first three sessions of the Continental Congress and continued in the public service until his death.-In the Class of 1744 we find William Samuel Johnson, who helped frame the Constitution of the United States. He too had been delegate to the Stamp Act Congress and represented his state in England as special agent. He was the first United States Senator from Connecticut.-In 1746 comes Lewis Morris, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.—In the class below him were two other students destined to be signers of the Declaration of Independence-namely, Oliver Wolcott, Governor of his state, active in the Continental Congress, and performing services of great public importance during the Revolution; and Lyman Hall, member of the Continental Congress and Governor of Georgia.—In 1758 was Silas Deane, who became a member of the Connecticut General Assembly and of the first two Continental Congresses; one of the leaders in the Preparedness movement of his day. We are told that without the supplies which he obtained, the victory of Saratoga would have been impossible. He later served his country as Ambassador to France. In the Class of 1765 we find Manasseh Cutler, who secured the passage

by Congress of the famous Ordinance of 1787 and served for years in the Massachusetts Legislature and in Congress. His classmate Theodore Sedgwick was a member of the Continental Congress and Speaker of the National House of Representatives. In 1772 there is Abraham Baldwin, one of the framers of the United States Constitution and later United States Senator; in 1778 another Oliver Wolcott, one of our first Secretaries of the Treasury and later Governor of his state for ten years; and in 1781 Chancellor Kent, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New York state. Every member of the Bar knows of his celebrated editions and Commentaries.-In the Class of 1804 we find John Caldwell Calhoun, one of our most famous public servants. His long, brilliant career in Washington secures for him high rank in the list of those who have served Yale by serving America.-Yale has not sent many Governors to Massachusetts, but in the Class of 1812 was one of her best"Honest John" Davis-whose career in Congress and as Governor was noted for practical sagacity and spotless integrity.— In 1815 we find John Middleton Clayton, conspicuous in the field of diplomacy; in 1833 Alphonso Taft, Secretary of War, Attorney General, and diplomat; in 1837 Samuel Jones Tilden, a national figure in political reform, Governor of New York and Democratic candidate for the presidency; and also William M. Evarts, Attorney General, Secretary of State, Senator; in 1846 Joseph Emerson Brown, Governor of Georgia, Chief Justice of that state, and United States Senator; and in 1847 Benjamin G. Brown, Senator, candidate for Vice President on the ticket with Horace Greeley.-The Class of 1853 had four distinguished men who spent their lives in public service: Senator Randall Lee Gibson, Attorney General Wayne MacVeagh, Justice George Shiras, and Ambassador Andrew D. White.

The number of Yale men who have gone into public life during the past sixty years is so great that we must leave most of them for the historian of the future to record. The names which will most readily occur to everyone are those of Justice Brewer, '56; Senator Depew, '56; Commissioner of Education William

T. Harris, '58; Simeon E. Baldwin, '61, Chief Justice and Governor of Connecticut; and William Howard Taft, '78, whose services as Governor of the Philippines, Secretary of War, and President of the United States mark him as the most distinguished man that Yale has sent into public life. The list might readily be prolonged, but enough has been said to show that the founders of Yale, were they with us to-day, would not be disappointed in their "collegiate school" which was to fit men "for public employment in civil state."

In conclusion, I can find no better words to express our hopes than these, used by the late Justice Brewer in the commemorative oration delivered at the Bicentennial:-"To-day the great temple of popular government in this Republic rises before the world the most magnificent structure on the political horizon. Her foundations rest on rocks more solid than New England granite; her architecture filled with a beauty richer than can be found in all the luxuriant growth of southern foliage and flower, and gilded with a shining splendor surpassing aught ever seen in California's golden sands; and in and upon all that lofty structure, from lowest wall to highest spire, Yale has written these immortal words: 'I train for public service." "

YALE IN LITERATURE

By

WILLIAM LYON PHELPS

American literature is so poor in comparison with the literatures of Greece, Rome, England, France, Germany, Italy, and other countries, that I may be forgiven if I do not "point with pride" to Yale's exhibit. It is unfortunately true that no firstclass creative writer has ever been graduated from Yale; but the same remark is equally descriptive of nearly all American institutions of learning. American universities are so much more numerous than American men of letters that there are not enough poets and novelists to "go around." I am using the word "writer" in the strictest sense; if I included theological and political thinkers, one would immediately name Jonathan Edwards and John C. Calhoun, and Yale would make a brave showing. Our university, as Mr. Stedman remarked, has always cultivated strength rather than grace; her ideal has been public service in war, in politics, in social betterment, and in science rather than in literary art. Yet she has sometimes been the first to bestow academic distinction upon great writers who were self-made. Yale was the first college to give a degree to Benjamin Franklin, to Mark Twain, and to James Whitcomb Riley.

It is also true that in the latter part of the eighteenth century Yale was a center of literary influence, and the "Hartford Wits," according to Professor Wendell of Harvard, ought to be placed to our credit. "At the time when the Hartford Wits wrote," said he, "no Harvard man had produced literature half so good as theirs." John Trumbull, of the class of 1767, was a distin