NEPTUNE
Also plays the rôle of morning star, rising in the afternoon of the 1st at 1:31, and setting on the morning of the 2d at 3:25; on the 16th, rising at 12:31 p. m., and setting next morning at 2:25; and on the 30th, rising at 11:36 a. m., and setting at 1:30 a. m. on the 31st. On the 24th, at 11:34 p. m., he is 1° 48′ north of the moon; is stationary at 3:00 a. m. on the 30th, up to which date he has retrograded 14′ 51.6″. His diameter being only 2.6″, he can only be seen through a telescope of higher power.
YALE COLLEGE AND YALE CUSTOMS.
BY GEORGE H. VINCENT.
The good people who, in 1638, came over from England and settled New Haven, came with a definite purpose. They aimed to establish a model community in church and state, and, as an important means to this end, they proposed to found a college. At first, events conspired to keep the classic groves from taking root on the bleak Connecticut shore. A capricious government in England was granting and annulling charters with alarming frequency, and the colonies were in a corresponding state of uncertainty and apprehension, while the ravages of the Indian wars did much to occupy and distract the thoughts of the New Haven people. Finally, in 1660, a bequest of Governor Hopkins induced the colonists to found an institution which they called a “Collegiate School,” lest a more pretentious title might make it difficult to obtain a charter. The Governor’s will, however, was contested by the legislature, which finally obtained a part of the bequest. This fact, together with the depression caused by the compulsory union of New Haven with the Connecticut colony, prevented any marked advance in the prosperity of the institution which, under the title of the “Hopkins Grammar School,” still prepares students for the various departments of Yale.
After the peace of Ryswick in 1697, prosperity returned to the colonists, and a second time the subject of a college was agitated. Ten trustees, most of them ministers from New Haven and vicinity, met some time in 1700 at Brandford, a small town near New Haven. Each trustee presented a few volumes with the declaration: “I give these books for the founding of a college.”
The next year a charter was granted to the new college, which was located at Saybrook, with the Rev. Abraham Pierson, a metaphysician of some note, as president. The students, eight in number, and “put into classes according to the proficiency they had antecedently made,” lived in the president’s house, under his supervision and instruction. The first commencement was held at Saybrook, September 13, 1702.