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department in Yale College, born in New Haven, June 24, 1734; died there, June 16, 1826; studied theology, and preached for some years. Indeed, he was chaplain to Lord Gardner in the French War of 1755. One Saturday evening he was in company with a minister of Connecticut, with whom he expected to spend the Sabbath, and who said to him: "You must preach for me to-morrow." Mr. Munson replied, "No, sir; I should be afraid to preach before your congregation, because you have so many intelligent men in it." The next morning the minister took him into his barnyard, and said to him, "Do you see that great ox? He won't poke. Do you see that great ox?" pointing to another, "He won't poke." He then said, "Do you see that little steer? He can't poke." The minister added, "You will preach for me to-day." Upon this, Mr. Munson said he readily assented to preach for him.

In Connecticut, before machinery had created a moneyed aristocracy in the State, there was a great system of domestic manufactures carried on in the well-to-do families of Connecticut, including those of the ministers, in which the capitalists and the operatives lived under the same roof. It was the age of homespun and industry.

"The modest wants of every day

The toil of every day supplied."

"The good housewife sought wool and flax and worked willingly with her hands. She laid her hands to the spindle, and her hands held the distaff."

The great wheel and the little wheel made music, sometimes in concert and sometimes in solo; and the young girl, as she turned the wheel, would sometimes sing:

"I'll sell my rock; I'll sell my reel,
Likewise I'll sell my spinning-wheel,
To buy my love a sword and a shield,

So give ear to my wandering roundelay."

Even men high in office, often spent a portion of their time in the cultivation of the soil.

Thus there was a meadow on the estate of the celebrated Wyllis family in Hartford, owned by them for several generations, the hay of which was said to be made every year by gentlemen "in silk stockings."

In diet, it was the age of potluck, when men went to their beef-barrel and pork barrel, and not to the butcher's cart for their meat. Every day at 12 o'clock the good wife, with her long iron fork, would place the smoking viands on the broad pewter platter, where the family could find plenty of "cut and come again."

The Indian pudding, boiled in a bag, prefaced the dinner. Hence the adage, "The proof of the pudding is in eating the bag," that is, all that was contained in the bag. In beverage, it was the age of home-brewed beer made from malt, manufactured from barley. The emptyings furnished the good housewife with yeast, which, when good, insured good bread, in accordance with the old maxim in the school-book, "As you brew, so you must bake."

When the celebrated Dr. John Mason of New York, at that time the most eloquent man of the clergy of the United States, preached on a certain occasion at New Haven, Dr. Azel Backus sat in the pulpit with him. During the delivery of the greater part of the sermon Dr. Backus was in tears, and when the services were concluded, Dr. Backus took him by the hand and said, "Dr. Mason, do you always preach in this way?" "Oh, no!" was the reply, "I can write a good sermon, but I generally feed my people on potluck."

C.

The ministers were the learned order of Connecticut. But instead of confining learning to their own order, they endeavored to extend it, as far as possible, to every class in the community. Instead of adopting the sentiment, “Ignorance is the mother of devotion," they adopted the opposite sentiment, "Knowledge is the mother of devotion." A strong mind, well cultivated, must perceive truth and feel its power, better than a weak and ignorant mind. The

ministers were educators in Connecticut, first, by their influence in establishing and promoting common schools. It should be said, to the praise of the ministers, that in their earnest and painstaking labors in connection with district schools, they received no pecuniary remuneration. This acting from public spirit was in accordance with the general practice of town officers. The selectmen of the town, for a long period, in like manner received no remuneration for their services, and if for want of public spirit a man should refuse to accept of the office when appointed, he was sometimes fined. Secondly, by the establishment of Yale College; thirdly, by the establishment of academies and schools of a higher order; fourthly, by the instructions which they gave in fitting youth for college, and for some of the more elevated professions. Thus, Nathaniel Chauncey, the first graduate of Yale College, Dr. Elizur Goodrich his successor, and Dr. David Smith, taught schools of this character. William Botsford, the Chief Justice of New Brunswick, and Eli Whitney, the great inventor, were fitted for college by Dr. Goodrich; Postmaster-General Samuel D. Hubbard, by Dr. Smith. Rev. Enoch Huntington, of Middletown, also taught a large school. Among his pupils were the Rev. Timothy Dwight, afterwards President of Yale College, and John C. Osborn, Professor in the Medical College in New York. President Dwight taught a celebrated school at Greenfield Hill. Dr. Azel Backus, in 1808-9, had a school of twenty, all of them boarding in his family, and in 1811-12 had fifteen scholars.

The influence of the intellectual training which ministers furnished their hearers on the Sabbath, to say nothing of the moral and religious training, was often very important in shaping the intellectual character of young men.

Dr. Emmons, a native of Connecticut, educated at Yale College, 1767, died in Franklin, Mass., 1840, trained up intellectually Judge Theron Metcalf, Prof. Alexander Fisher, and Horace Mann, though none of them embraced his peculiar views of religion.

Oliver Ellsworth studied theology one year with Dr. John

Smalley. There was a tradition when I was studying theology, that when called to write his first sermon he wrote ten sheets of paper in defining the terms which he used in the sermon, which he did with great accuracy. Dr. Smalley was struck with the exactness of his mind, and told him that he would make a better lawyer than minister. Upon this, Mr. Ellsworth betook himself to the study of the law, and became in time Chief Justice of the United States.

The celebrated Jeremiah Mason, the great lawyer, first of New Hampshire, and then of Massachusetts, studied divinity for a time with Dr. Smalley.

The clergymen of Connecticut introduced among their people something of the Aryan civilization and something of the Semitic. Many of them could quote passages from the classics as fluently as they could quote texts from the Scriptures. For a long time the students of Yale College were required to converse in Latin.

As helping to show the influence of the ministers of Connecticut in promoting general education, the following letter, published in the annual report of 1868, by the Connecticut Board of Education, is not out of place.

DURHAM CENTER, CONN., April, 1868.

To the Secretary of the Board of Education:

Dear Sir-In reply to your favor, in which you request me to furnish some information "concerning the town and village libraries, which, in various parts of the State, were the educators of our fathers," I have to say, that the shortness of the time, and my previous engagements, have not allowed me to bestow that attention to the subject which its intrinsic interest demands. These libraries are now numbered with the things that were; but for fifty or a hundred years they were a living power in the Commonwealth, as we may still learn in the fast fading light of tradition.

Books were for a long time scarce in Connecticut, as elsewhere in New England, except in the libraries of some of the eminent clergymen ; and so much valued were they, that when a certain distinguished clergyman in Massachusetts

died, who was in possession of a valuable library, a clergy· man in Stratford, Connecticut, offered to bring up and educate his orphan son, then only five years of age, on condition that he might have the use of that library until that son should want it. And so good a use did he make of that library, that he was offered the Presidency of Yale College, which he declined.

Books were the foundation of Yale College. The foundation was laid on this wise: Ten of the principal clergymen of the Colony, having formed themselves into a society, met at Branford. "Each member brought a number of books, and presenting them to the body, said these words: 'I give these books for the founding of a college in this Colony." Then the trustees took possession of them and confided them to the care of the Reverend Mr. Russell, the Librarian. The number of the books was forty folio volumes.

The opinion of these founders was, that a college is a mental and spiritual structure, built on the foundation of the prophets and apostles of learning, Jesus Christ being the chief corner stone. These books were, at once, the symbols and the sources of learning, the exponents of those donors who founded Yale College, and the fountains from which the students could thereafter slake their thirst for knowledge.

As showing the high appreciation of books, in 1717, when the college library was removed from Saybrook to New Haven, a large number of men resisted the removal, and "in the struggle that ensued, about two hundred and fifty volumes of valuable books were conveyed away by unknown persons, and were never recovered." Whether any of those books formed the basis of the valuable libraries not long after established by individuals in the three towns of Saybrook, Lyme, and Guilford, I am not able positively to say. Some circumstances point that way.

The year 1733 was signalized by the noble donation of one thousand volumes to Yale College, by a distinguished divine of the Church of England, Dean BERKLEY, afterwards Bishop of Cloyne. This caused great rejoicing among the friends of the College in the Colony, and inspired high hopes of its

success.

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