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

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Sheff, as it was called, existed apart from Yale College until 1945, when it returned to its original function of teaching on the giaduate level, Avhile the scientific departments were attached to Yale College. Steps toward this goal had first been made in 1919, when a freshman year common to both the Scientific School and Yale College was instituted. Meanwhile, th e School of Engineering, made independent in 1932, continues as a separate entity. Yale College and SheflF ( T ' oR MANY YEARS, Students in the Sheffield School of Science frater- nized but little with those in Yale Col- lege. At first, Sheff had no dormitories of its own, so that all its undergraduates lived away from the campus. There had been only two himdred students in the Scientific School in 1878, while there were three times that many in Yale College. By 1913 there were 1100 students in Sheff, and only two hundred more than that in Yale College. With the advent of Sheff societies and fraternities, and under the influence of the greatly increased numbers in the Scientific School, both Yale College and Sheff eventually became far more sym- pathetically inclined towards one an- other. Sitting on the Fen( (J iTTiNG on the fence was a tradi- tional practice imtil the Old Fence was finally taken doAvn at the end of the last century. All classes but the fresh- man gathered at the Fence, which was situated at the corner of Chapel and College Streets, to talk, smoke, and while College room in a private house about 1890

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!«li ■ : s«!3Sf«8H»« S ' The second Sheffield Scientific School building, before ivings were added placed by six Alumni Fellows, all lay- men, elected by the alimini. The election of Arthur Twining Had- ley to the presidency in 1899 marked the first time that a layman had held that office, and James Rowland Angell, in 1921, became the first non-graduate of Vale in over 150 years to hold the office of president. Yale ' s first five presidents, or rectors, had been Har ' ard giaduates. Growth of the College ? ( 57 ' HROUGHOUT the nineteenth centtny, Yale began adding types of instruc- tion which led to degrees other than that of Bachelor of Arts. The School of Medicine was established in 1810, and instruction therein began in 1813. The Divinity School, the Law School, giad- uate courses in philosophy and the arts, the Yale Scientific School, and Schools of Fine Arts, Music, and Forestry were all established by 1900, but it was not initil 1887 that an act of the General .Assembly atuhorized the naine, Yale Uiiiversity. which had been in popular use throughout the century. The Insti- tute of Human Relations and other gradtiate schools have since been added. The Sheffield Scientific School ( 37 HE Yale Scientific School fotmd it- self practically penniless from the start. Into the financial breach stepped Joseph E. Sheffield, with gifts of over $175,000 in addition to plans for a permanent fiuid, in return for Avhich the Corporation voted to apply his name to the school. In 1861, the Sheffield Scien- tific School came into being.

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away the early evening. Each class had a particular part of the Fence they knew as their own. Occasional efforts by the Administra- tion to substitute plank benches placed around the campus were unsuccessful, for the Fence never lost its magic mag- netism until its final demolition in the face of progress. Early Dress (X 1824, uniform dress Avas decreed by the college. Part of the order read: The coat to be a plain frock-coat, with a standing cape, the classes . . . distinguished by [varying numbers of] marks of braid on the cape of the coat ... Subdued color schemes were prescribed as well, but the laws soon proved impracticable and unworkable. The Banger Rush ;5Z)usHEs were traditional encounters between freshmen and sophomores in which the two factions attacked each Senior privileges incltided spinning tops ' ' ' i ju i i ( T ' -i ' Traditional rushes — a decision determining the winner was tisually controversial . . . Other and tried to break through the other ' s lines. A decision determining the winner was usually controversial, if not impossible, at the battle ' s end. The object of the banger rush was for the sophomores to wrest a number of bangers— a type of cane— from the hands of the freshmen, who had been prohibited by tradi- tional sophomore edict from carrying bangers and from wearing stove-pipe hats until a certain time of year. These rushes took place sporadically after the first display of rage by the freshmen had been manifested. Freshman Rules ANY RULES existed which classified the freshman as inferior to his upperclass counterpart. It was 1804 be- fore freshmen were exempted from running errands for up- perclassmen, and in return for these sorts of indignities, the