Yale University - Banner / Pot Pourri Yearbook (New Haven, CT)

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BPfliIEITiU11 Un Arthur Martin mhrvlvr, 'ililm Tililhn lflrtirril in 1911 as Eurfrr Hrnfrzsur . nf lfiisinrg

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51:2 'YHL HDD R OC POURRI 5112 Annual zljvar Bunk nf the Evinhvnia uf H5119 'Hniurraiig VOLUME IV. BEING VOLUME LXX. OF TI-IE BANNER and VOLUME XLVII. OF THE POT POURRI 1 H 1 2 Ehitura Elnlm Qlhnnhler Erir IH. Hamann Ehmrph Er QI. 'flirll william IH. Cllvriiixz

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ifimzurr muh 1Hnt Hilnizrri PROFESSOR WHEELER T is in the University that we naturally expect to find the great teacher, the genius in that line of work. It is there that we do find him, though perhaps not as frequently as we ought. lVhcn such a teacher is found, the tradition of his work should be among the abiding and treasured possessions of his univer- sity. In the lives of those who come under its immediate influence, the remembrance and effect of it are lasting, never to be effaced by any later impression, but when the sustaining force is no longer present in contemporary student life how quickly any tradition weakens and fades away. It was thc great good fortune of Yale College during the past generation to have more than its normal share of great teachers, and nothing can be more fitting than that some account of what they did should be preserved in the more permanent records of student life. Professor Arthur Martin Wiheelcr was born in 1836, in Wieston, Conn. In 1857 he graduated from Yale in the same class witl1 Moses Coit Tyler and President Cyrus Northrup. In 1861 he was appointed a tutor and after serving thc usual term of three years, he went abroad for further study. In Europe he obtained the best that was then to be had, oying particularly thc instruction of Ranke at Berlin, then at the height of his powers and fame. In 1865 he was appointed to the newly established Durfee professorship, one of the earliest formal endowments of a chair of history in the country. In September, 1867, Professor lVheelcr took up the duties of his position, and from that time to the end of the last college year, in 1911, he fulfilled them without interruption, not even taking the now customary sabbatical furlough, Such a term of service has been exceeded in length by only two professors in the history of the college and in quality and variety of usefulness by none. In the classroom, Yale has never had a better teacher. His presentation was characterized by great clearness, by keen criticism of men and measures with no lack, however, of constructive generalization, by a plainly shown contempt for shams of all kinds and by a virile directness and vigor, all of which made it particularly attractive to advanced students. In addition Professor VVheeler's occasional formal lectures were characterized by a literary form and finish too often neglected in our college lecturing. It has been the judgment of more than one of his pupils who have afterwards listened to the best lecturing in the most famous universities of the old world that nothing better in these respects was to be found anywhere, not even in 7