Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 17, No. 100, April, 1876Various
History
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 17, No. 100, April, 1876
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
or university. The students, without having lost a particle of true
manliness and independence, riot less and learn more: they show in
every way that they are better students and better citizens. Wherein,
then, lies the secret of the change? Evidently, in the circumstance
that the city has outgrown the college. New Haven is no longer an
insignificant town, but has become the seat of a large local trade and
the centre of heavy manufacturing and railroad interests. Like other
cities, it has established a paid fire department and a strong police
force for the protection of all its residents, the college included.
It is no longer overshadowed, much less over-awed, by the college. On
the contrary, the observation forces itself upon the visitor in New
Haven that the college, notwithstanding its numerous staff of able
professors, notwithstanding its great body of students, its libraries
and scientific collections, is far from playing the leading part in
municipal matters. It is only one among many factors. Life and its
relations are on an ampler scale: the wealth and refinement of the
permanent population are great, and are growing unceasingly. In a few
years more New Haven will be fairly within the vortex of New York.
This change, which has come about so gradually that those living in it
perhaps fail to perceive it readily, has affected the college in many
ways. It has made the life of the professors more agreeable, more
generous, so to speak, and it has toned down the student spirit
of caste. The young man who enters Yale feels, from the moment of
matriculation, that he is indeed in a large city, and must conform
to its regulations--that there are such beings as policemen and
magistrates, whom he cannot provoke with impunity. Even were this all,
it would be gain enough. But there is another gain of a far higher
nature. The student perceives that outside his college world lies a
larger world that he cannot overlook--a world whose society is worth
cultivating, whose opinions are backed by wealth and prestige. It does
not follow from this that he ceases to be a student. Companions and
study make him feel that he is leading a peculiar life, that he is a
member of an independent organization. But he does not feel--and this
is the main point--that he has retired from the world or that he can
set himself up against the world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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