Rev. Anson Phelps Stokes, Secretary of Yale University
Substance of Address before the Yale Menorah Society, October 27, 1915
MR. Stokes spoke of three reasons why Jewish students of the right type were welcome to Yale University:
1. They showed themselves capable of the highest scholarship; the large number of prize awards won by Jewish students was evidence of this. The speaker expressed the hope that some of the Jewish students would go in for scholarly life careers. With so many Jewish students of high scholarship it seemed strange that relatively few pursued graduate studies outside of the various professions.
2. They made their contribution to the life and thought of a democratic American university. A university like Yale is, he said, a melting pot of democracy. One of its main advantages is that it brings together Orient and Occident, North and South, Catholic and Protestant, Christian and Jew, and makes each understand the point of view of the other.
3. The presence of Jewish students at the University tends to attract to Yale gifts in the interest of Semitic studies. The contribution of Judaism to religious and ethical ideals was so important that no university could afford to fail in supplying adequate courses of Semitic instruction. Several recent gifts to the University in the interest of Jewish scholarship from prominent Jewish citizens indicates that they had been impressed with the fair treatment of Jewish boys at Yale. He spoke with appreciation of a recent gift of a rabbinic library of several thousand volumes of large value.
Mr. Stokes spoke with much appreciation of the Menorah Society because of what it was doing in bringing together Jewish students in the interest of high intellectual and ethical ideals, and hoped that it would not forget that its mission was not only to interest Jewish students but also Christian students in Jewish culture.