Congregationalists) residing in the colony. By a supplementary act of 1723 the rector was made ex-officio a trustee. By a second charter (1745) ample powers were conferred upon the president (rector) and fellows, constituting together a governing board or Corporation. This charter is still in force. In 1792 the governor and lieutenant-governor of the state, and six state senators, were made ex-officio members of the Corporation. In 1872 the six senators were replaced by six graduates, chosen by the alumni body. The clerical element still constitutes one half of the Corporation. In the first half of the 19th century, under the lead of Nathaniel W. Taylor (q.v.), the Divinity School of Yale became nationally prominent for “Taylorism” or “New Haven Theology.” Daily attendance at prayers is still required of all college students.
The first college professorship established was that of divinity (1755), which, in a sense, was the beginning of extra-college or university work. The theological department was not organized as a distinct school until 1822. In 1770 a second professorship was established, of mathematics and natural philosophy. Timothy Dwight (president, 1795–1817) planned the establishment of professional schools; his term saw the foundation of the Medical School (1813) besides the Divinity School. In 1803 a chair was created for Benjamin Silliman, Sr. (1770–1864) in chemistry and natural history; English grammar and geography did not disappear from the curriculum until 1826, nor arithmetic until 1830; political economy was introduced in 1825, and modern languages (French) in the same year. Not until 1847 did modern history receive separate recognition. The Library had been given the status of an independent department in 1843. Compulsory commons were abolished in 1842, thus removing one feature of a private boarding school. Corporal punishment (“cuffing” of the offender’s ears by the President) had disappeared before the War of Independence; and so also had the custom of printing the students’ names according to their social rank, and using a “degradation” in precedence as punishment; while Dwight abolished the ancient custom of fagging, and the undemocratic system of fines that enabled a rich student to live as he pleased at the expense only of his pocket. The School of Law was established in 1843. Instruction to graduates in non-professional courses seems to have been begun in 1826. The appointment of Edward E. Salisbury to the chair of Arabic and Sanskrit (1841) was the first provision at Yale for the instruction of graduates by professors independent of the College. About the same time graduate instruction in chemistry became important. (In 1846 also a chair of agricultural chemistry was established—the first in the country.) In 1846 an extra-College department of Philosophy and Arts was created, conferring degrees since 1852; and from this were separated in 1854 the sciences, which were entrusted to a separate Scientific School, the original promoter of agricultural experiment stations in the United States. Since that time this school and the College have developed much as complementary and co-ordinate schools of undergraduates, Yale affording in this respect a very marked contrast with Harvard. Graduate instruction was concentrated in 1871 into a distinct Graduate School. This with the three traditional professional schools—the Art School, established in 1866 (instruction since 1869), and the first university art school of the country, the Music School, established in 1894 (instruction since 1890), and the Forest School, established in 1900—make up the University, around the College. For the founding of the Peabody Museum of Natural History, George Peabody, of London, contributed $150,000 in 1866. The Observatory, devoted exclusively to research, was established in 1871. In 1887 the name Yale “University” was adopted. The organic unity of the whole was then recognized by throwing open to students of any department the advantages of all. In 1886, for the first time, a president was chosen who was not of the College faculty, but from the University faculty.
Great as were the changes in the metamorphosis of old Yale, none had more influence upon its real and inner life than the gradual extension of the freedom accorded the students in the selection of their studies. In 1854 there was no election permissible until late in the Junior year. In 1876, 1884 and 1893 such freedom was greatly extended. In 1892 the work of the Graduate School was formally opened to women (some professors having admitted them for years past by special consent). Yale was the first college in New England to take this step.
The buildings number sixty-four in all. Connecticut Hall (1750–52), long known as South Middle College, a plain brick building, is the only remainder of the colonial style (restored, 1905). Around it are fourteen buildings forming a quadrangle on the College campus on the W. side of the New Haven Green, between Elm and Chapel Streets. The oldest are the Old Library (1842) and Alumni Hall (1853). Others are the Art School (1864), Farnam Hall (1869), Durfee Hall (1870), Lawrance Hall (1886), Battell Chapel (1876), Osborn Hall (1889), Vanderbilt Hall (1894), Chittenden Hall (1888) and Linsly Hall (1908). Dwight Hall, erected in 1886 for the Yale University Christian Association, Welch Hall (1892) and Phelps Hall complete the quadrangle. Across from the W. side of the quadrangle is the Peabody Museum (1876). On the N. side of Elm Street is a row of buildings, including the Gymnasium (1892), the Divinity School (1870) and the Law School (1897). University Avenue leads N. from the College campus to the University court or campus, on which are the Bicentennial Buildings (1901–2). E. and N.E. of the University court are the buildings of the Sheffield Scientific School. Farther N.E. are the Observatory, Hammond Metallurgical Laboratory, Forestry Building and Infirmary, and to the S.W. of the College campus are the Medical School and University Clinic.
The University is organized in four departments—Philosophy and the Arts, Theology, Medicine, and Law each with a distinct faculty. The first embraces the Academical Department (College), the Sheffield Scientific School,—named in honour of Joseph Earle Sheffield (1793–1882), a generous benefactor,—the School of the Fine Arts, the Department of Music, the Graduate School and the Forest School, founded in 1900 by a gift of $150,000 from J. W. Pinchot and his wife. Other institutions organized independently of any one department are: the Library, the Peabody Museum of Natural History, the Astronomical Observatory and the Botanical Garden, established in 1900 on the estate of Professor O. C. Marsh. The special treasures of the Library include the classical library of Ernst Curtius; the collection of Oriental books and manuscripts made by Edward E. Salisbury (1814–1901); the Chinese library of Samuel Wells Williams (1812–1884); a Japanese collection of above 3000 volumes; the Scandinavian library of Count Riant; the collection of Arabic manuscripts made by Count Landberg; the political science collection of Robert von Mohl; a copy of Newton’s Principia presented to the College by the author; manuscripts of Jonathan Edwards; and large parts of a gift of nearly a thousand volumes given to Yale in 1733 by Bishop George Berkeley, who also gave to the College his American farm, as a basis of a scholarship, the first established in America. The Library is especially strong in the departments of American history, medieval history and English dramatic literature. Its total number of volumes in 1910 was nearly 600,000, exclusive of many thousand pamphlets. The Peabody Museum contains an unrivalled collection of Silurian trilobites; a fine collection of pseudomorphs; a beautiful collection of Chinese artistic work in stone made by Samuel Wells Williams; a notable mineralogical collection; a fine collection of meteorites made by Professor Hubert Anson Newton (1830–1896); and the magnificent palaeontological collection of Professor O. C. Marsh. The School of the Fine Arts possesses the Jarves gallery of Italian art, a remarkable collection of Italian “primitives” dating from the 11th to the 17th century; the Alden collection of Belgian wood-carvings, of the 17th century; and a large collection of modern paintings among which are fifty-four pictures by John Trumbull. The organization of the Trumbull collection in 1831 was the first step taken in the United States toward the introduction of the fine arts into a university. The equipment of the Observatory consists principally of a six-inch heliometer by Repsold, an eight-inch equatorial by Grubb, and two sets of equatorially mounted cameras for photographing meteors.
In the College and the Medical School four years are required to complete the course of instruction; in the Divinity School and the Law School, three years; in the Forest School, two years; and in the Scientific School there are both three-year and five-year courses, five years being required for all engineering degrees. Admission to the College is gained only by passing an examination in Latin, Greek or substitutes for Greek, French or German, English, mathematics and ancient history. Admission to the Scientific School is also only by examination. Substantially the equivalent of a college degree is required for admission to the Divinity School, but the Medical School and the Law School require only two years of college work, and a student may obtain a degree from Yale College and a degree in divinity, medicine or law in six years. The Forest School, with an extensive equipment at New Haven and a Forest Experiment Station comprising about
