Chapter 38

YALE AND EUROPE--1850-1857

At the close of my year at the little Western New York College I felt that it was enough time wasted, and, anxious to try for something better, urged upon my father my desire to go to one of the larger New England universities. But to this he would not listen. He was assured by the authorities of the little college that I had been doing well, and his churchmanship, as well as his respect for the bishop, led him to do what was very unusual with him--to refuse my request. Up to this period he had allowed me to take my own course; but now he was determined that I should take his. He was one of the kindest of men, but he had stern ideas as to proper subordination, and these he felt it his duty to maintain. I was obliged to make a coup d'<e'>tat, and for a time it cost me dear. Braving the censure of family and friends, in the early autumn of 1850 I deliberately left the college, and took refuge with my old instructor P----, who had prepared me for college at Syracuse, and who was now principal of the academy at Moravia, near the head of Owasco Lake, some fifty miles distant. To thus defy the wishes of those dearest to me was a serious matter. My father at first took it deeply to heart. His letters were very severe. He thought my career wrecked, avowed that he had lost all interest in it, and declared that he would rather have received news of my death than of such a disgrace. But I knew that my dear mother was on my side. Her letters remained as affectionate as ever; and I determined to atone for my disobe- dience by severe and systematic work. I began to study more earnestly than ever before, reviewed my mathematics and classics vigorously, and began a course of reading which has had great influence on all my life since. Among my books was D'Aubigne's ``History of the Reformation.'' Its deficiencies were not of a sort to harm me, its vigor and enthusiasm gave me a great impulse. I not only read but studied it, and followed it with every other book on the subject that I could find. No reading ever did a man more good. It not only strengthened and deepened my better purposes, but it continued powerfully the impulse given me by the historical novels of Scott, and led directly to my devoting myself to the study and teaching of modern history. Of other books which influenced me about this period, Emerson's ``Representative Men'' was one; another was Carlyle's ``Past and Present,'' in which the old Abbot of Bury became one of my ideals; still another was Buskin's ``Seven Lamps of Architecture''; and to such a degree that this art has given to my life some of its greatest pleasures. Ruskin was then at his best. He had not yet been swept from his bearings by popular applause, or intoxicated by his own verbosity. In later years he lost all influence over me, for, in spite of his wonderful style, he became trivial, whimsical, peevish, goody-goody;--talking to grown men and women as a dyspeptic Sunday-school teacher might lay down the law to classes of little girls. As regards this later period, Max Nordau is undoubtedly right in speaking of Ruskin's mind as ``turbid and fallacious''; but the time of which I speak was his best, and his influence upon me was good. I remember especially that his ``Lamp of Power'' made a very deep impression upon me. Carlyle, too, was at his best. He was the simple, strong preacher;--with nothing of the spoiled cynic he afterward became.

The stay of three months with my friend--the future bishop--in the little country town, was also good for me physically. In our hours of recreation we roamed through the neighboring woods, shooting squirrels and pigeons with excellent effect on my health. Meantime I kept up my correspondence with all the members of the family save my father;--from him there was no sign. But at last came a piece of good news. He was very fond of music, and on the arrival of Jenny Lind in the United States he went to New York to attend her concerts. During one of these my mother turned suddenly toward him and said: ``What a pity that the boy cannot hear this; how he would enjoy it!'' My father answered, ``Tell him to come home and see us.'' My mother, of course, was not slow in writing me, and a few days later my father cordially greeted my home-coming, and all difficulties seemed over. Shortly after Christmas he started with me for Yale; but there soon appeared a lion in the path. Our route lay through Hartford, the seat of Trinity College, and to my consternation I found at the last moment that he had letters from our rector and others to the president and professors of that institution. Still more alarming, we had hardly entered the train when my father discovered a Trinity student on board. Of course, the youth spoke in the highest terms of his college and of his faculty, and more and more my father was pleased with the idea of staying a day or two at Hartford, taking a look at Trinity, and presenting our letters of introduction. During a considerably extended career in the diplomatic service I have had various occasions to exercise tact, care, and discretion, but I do not think that my efforts on all these together equaled those which I then put forth to avoid stopping at Hartford. At last my father asked me, rather severely, why I cared so much about going to New Haven, and I framed an answer offhand to meet the case, saying that Yale had an infinitely finer library than Trinity. Thereupon he said, ``My boy, if you will go to Trinity College I will give you the best private library in the United States.'' I said, ``No, I am going to New Haven; I started for New Haven, and I will go there.'' I had never braved him before. He said not a word. We passed quietly through Hartford, and a day or two later I was entered at Yale.

It was a happy change. I respected the institution, for its discipline, though at times harsh, was, on the whole, just, and thereby came a great gain to my own self-respect. But as to the education given, never was a man more disappointed at first. The president and professors were men of high character and attainments; but to the lower classes the instruction was given almost entirely by tutors, who took up teaching for bread-winning while going through the divinity school. Naturally most of the work done under these was perfunctory. There was too much reciting by rote and too little real intercourse between teacher and taught. The instructor sat in a box, heard students' translations without indicating anything better, and their answers to questions with very few suggestions or remarks. The first text-book in Greek was Xenophon's ``Memorabilia,'' and one of the first men called up was my classmate Delano Goddard. He made an excellent translation,--clean, clear, in thoroughly good English; but he elicited no attention from the instructor, and was then put through sundry grammatical puzzles, among which he floundered until stopped by the word, ``Sufficient.'' Soon afterward another was called up who rattled off glibly a translation without one particle of literary merit, and was then plied with the usual grammatical questions. Being asked to ``synopsize'' the Greek verb, he went through the various moods and tenses, in all sorts of ways and in all possible combinations, his tongue rattling like the clapper of a mill. When he sat down my next neighbor said to me, ``that man will be our valedictorian.'' This disgusted me. If that was the style of classical scholarship at Yale, I knew that there was nothing in it for me. It turned out as my friend said. That glib reciter did become the valedictorian of the class, but stepped from the commencement stage into nothingness, and was never heard of more. Goddard became the editor of one of the most important metropolitan news- papers of the United States, and, before his early death, distinguished himself as a writer on political and historical topics.

Nor was it any better in Latin. We were reading, during that term the ``De Senectute'' of Cicero,--a beautiful book; but to our tutor it was neither more nor less than a series of pegs on which to hang Zumpt's rules for the subjunctive mood. The translation was hurried through, as of little account. Then came questions regarding the subjunctives;--questions to which very few members of the class gave any real attention. The best Latin scholar in the class, G. W. S----, since so distinguished as the London correspondent of the ``New York Tribune,'' and, at present, as the New York correspondent of the London ``Times,'' having one day announced to some of us,--with a very round expletive,--that he would answer no more such foolish questions, the tutor soon discovered his recalcitrancy, and thenceforward plied him with such questions and nothing else. S---- always answered that he was not prepared on them; with the result that at the Junior Exhibition he received no place on the programme.

In the junior year matters improved somewhat; but, though the professors were most of them really distinguished men, and one at least, James Hadley, a scholar who, at Berlin or Leipsic, would have drawn throngs of students from all Christendom, they were fettered by a system which made everything of gerund-grinding and nothing of literature.

The worst feature of the junior year was the fact that through two terms, during five hours each week, ``recitations'' were heard by a tutor in ``Olmsted's Natural Philosophy.'' The text-book was simply repeated by rote. Not one student in fifty took the least interest in it; and the man who could give the words of the text most glibly secured the best marks. One exceedingly unfortunate result of this kind of instruction was that it so disgusted the class with the whole subject, that the really excellent lectures of Professor Olmsted, illustrated by probably the best apparatus then possessed by any American university, were voted a bore. Almost as bad was the historical instruction given by Professor James Hadley. It consisted simply in hearing the student repeat from memory the dates from ``P tz's Ancient History.'' How a man so gifted as Hadley could have allowed any part of his work to be so worthless, it is hard to understand. And, worse remained behind. He had charge of the class in Thucydides; but with every gift for making it a means of great good to us, he taught it in the perfunctory way of that period;--calling on each student to construe a few lines, asking a few grammatical questions, and then, with hardly ever a note or comment, allowing him to sit down. Two or three times during a term something would occur to draw Hadley out, and then it delighted us all to hear him. I recall, to this hour, with the utmost pleasure, some of his remarks which threw bright light into the general subject; but alas! they were few and far between.

The same thing must be said of Professor Thatcher's instruction in Tacitus. It was always the same mechanical sort of thing, with, occasionally, a few remarks which really aroused interest.

In the senior year the influence of President Woolsey and Professor Porter was strong for good. Though the ``Yale system'' fettered them somewhat, their personality often broke through it. Yet it amazes me to remember that during a considerable portion of our senior year no less a man than Woolsey gave instruction in history by hearing men recite the words of a text-book;--and that text-book the Rev. John Lord's little, popular treatise on the ``Modern History of Europe!'' Far better was Woolsey's instruction in Guizot. That was stimulating. It not only gave some knowledge of history, but suggested thought upon it. In this he was at his best. He had not at that time begun his new career as a professor of International Law, and that subject was treated by a kindly old governor of the State, in a brief course of instruction, which was, on the whole, rather inadequate. Professor Porter's instruction in philosophy opened our eyes and led us to do some thinking for ourselves. In political economy, during the senior year, President Woolsey heard the senior class ``recite'' from Wayland's small treatise, which was simply an abridged presentation of the Manchester view, the most valuable part of this instruction being the remarks by Woolsey himself, who discussed controverted questions briefly but well. He also delivered, during one term, a course of lectures upon the historical relations between the German States, which had some interest, but, not being connected with our previous instruction, took little hold upon us. As to natural science, we had in chemistry and geology, doubtless, the best courses then offered in the United States. The first was given by Benjamin Silliman, the elder, an American pioneer in science, and a really great character; the second, by James Dwight Dana, and in his lecture-room one felt himself in the hands of a master. I cannot forgive myself for having yielded to the general indifference of the class toward all this instruction. It was listlessly heard, and grievously neglected. The fault was mainly our own; --but it was partly due to ``The System,'' which led students to neglect all studies which did not tell upon ``marks'' and ``standing.''

Strange to say, there was not, during my whole course at Yale, a lecture upon any period, subject, or person in literature, ancient or modern:--our only resource, in this field, being the popular lecture courses in the town each winter, which generally contained one or two presentations of literary subjects. Of these, that which made the greatest impression upon me was by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Sundry lectures in my junior year, by Whipple, and at a later period by George William Curtis, also influenced me. It was one of the golden periods of English literature, the climax of the Victorian epoch;--the period of Wordsworth, Tennyson, and the Brownings, of Thackeray and Dickens, of Macaulay and Carlyle on one side of the Atlantic, and of Emerson, Irving, Hawthorne, Ban- croft, Prescott, Motley, Lowell, Longfellow, Horace Bushnell, and their compeers on the other. Hence came strong influences; but in dealing with them we were left to ourselves.

Very important in shaping my intellectual development at this time were my fellow-students. The class of 1853 was a very large one for that day, and embraced far more than the usual proportion of active-minded men. Walks and talks with these were of great value to me; thence came some of my best impulses and suggestions to reading and thought.

Especially fortunate was I in my ``chum,'' the friend that stood closest to me. He was the most conservative young man I ever knew, and at the very opposite pole from me on every conceivable subject. But his deeply religious character, his thorough scholarship, and his real devotion to my welfare, were very precious to me. Our very differences were useful, since they obliged me to revise with especial care all my main convictions and trains of thought. He is now, at this present writing, the Bishop of Michigan, and a most noble and affectionate pastor of his flock.

The main subjects of interest to us all had a political bearing. Literature was considered as mainly subsidiary to political discussion. The great themes, in the minds of those who tried to do any thinking, were connected with the tremendous political struggle then drawing toward its climax in civil war. Valuable to me was my membership of sundry student fraternities. They were vealy, but there was some nourishment in them; by far the best of all being a senior club which, though it had adopted a hideous emblem, was devoted to offhand discussions of social and political questions;--on the whole, the best club I have ever known.

The studies which interested me most were political and historical; from classical studies the gerund-grinding and reciting by rote had completely weaned me. One of our Latin tutors, having said to me: ``If you would try you could become a first-rate classical scholar,'' I answered: ``Mr. B----, I have no ambition to become a classical scholar, as scholarship is understood here.''

I devoted myself all the more assiduously to study on my own lines, especially in connection with the subjects taught by President Woolsey in the senior year, and the one thing which encouraged me was that, at the public reading of essays, mine seemed to interest the class. Yet my first trial of strength with my classmates in this respect did not apparently turn out very well. It was at a prize debate, in one of the large open societies, but while I had prepared my speech with care, I had given no thought to its presentation, and, as a result, the judges passed me by. Next day a tutor told me that Professor Porter wished to see me. He had been one of the judges, but it never occurred to me that he could have summoned me for anything save some transgression of college rules. But, on my arrival at his room, he began discussing my speech, said some very kind things of its matter, alluded to some defects in its manner, and all with a kindness which won my heart. Thus began a warm personal friendship which lasted through his professorship and presidency to the end of his life. His kindly criticism was worth everything to me; it did far more for me than any prize could have done. Few professors realize how much a little friendly recognition may do for a student. To this hour I bless Dr. Porter's memory.

Nor did my second effort, a competition in essay-writing, turn out much better. My essay was too labored, too long, too crabbedly written, and it brought me only half a third prize.

This was in the sophomore year. But in the junior year came a far more important competition; that for the Yale Literary Gold Medal, and without any notice of my intention to any person, I determined to try for it. Being open to the entire university, the universal expectation was that it would be awarded to a senior, as had hitherto been the case, and speculations were rife as to what mem- ber of the graduating class would take it. When the committee made their award to the essay on ``The Greater Distinctions in Statesmanship,'' opened the sealed envelopes and assigned the prize to me, a junior, there was great surprise. The encouragement came to me just at the right time, and did me great good. Later, there were awarded to me the first Clarke Prize for the discussion of a political subject, and the De Forest Gold Medal, then the most important premium awarded in the university, my subject being, ``The Diplomatic History of Modern Times.'' Some details regarding this latter success may serve to show certain ways in which influence can be exerted powerfully upon a young man. The subject had been suggested to me by hearing Edwin Forrest in Bulwer's drama of ``Richelieu.'' The character of the great cardinal, the greatest statesman that France has produced, made a deep impression upon me, and suggested the subjects in both the Yale Literary and the De Forest competitions, giving me not only the initial impulse, but maintaining that interest to which my success was largely due. Another spur to success was even more effective. Having one day received a telegram from my father, asking me to meet him in New York, I did so, and passed an hour with him, all the time at a loss to know why he had sent for me. But, finally, just as I was leaving the hotel to return to New Haven, he said, ``By the way, there is still another prize to be competed for, the largest of all.'' ``Yes,'' I answered, ``the De Forest; but I have little chance for that; for though I shall probably be one of the six Townsend prize men admitted to the competition, there are other speakers so much better, that I have little hope of taking it.'' He gave me rather a contemptuous look, and said, somewhat scornfully: ``If I were one of the first SIX competitors, in a class of over a hundred men, I would try hard to be the first ONE.'' That was all. He said nothing more, except good-bye. On my way to New Haven I thought much of this, and on arriving, went to a student, who had some reputation as an elocutionist, and engaged him for a course in vocal gymnastics. When he wished me to recite my oration before him, I declined, saying that it must be spoken in my own way, not in his; that his way might be better, but that mine was my own, and I would have no other. He confined himself, therefore, to a course of vocal gymnastics, and the result was a surprise to myself and all my friends. My voice, from being weak and hollow, became round, strong, and flexible. I then went to a student in the class above my own, a natural and forcible speaker, and made an arrangement with him to hear me pronounce my oration, from time to time, and to criticize it in a common-sense way. This he