isitor in New
Haven that the college, notwithstanding its numerous staff of able
professors, notwithstanding its great body of students, its libraries
and scientific collections, is far from playing the leading part in
municipal matters. It is only one among many factors. Life and its
relations are on an ampler scale: the wealth and refinement of the
permanent population are great, and are growing unceasingly. In a few
years more New Haven will be fairly within the vortex of New York.
This change, which has come about so gradually that those living in it
perhaps fail to perceive it readily, has affected the college in many
ways. It has made the life of the professors more agreeable, more
generous, so to speak, and it has toned down the student spirit
of caste. The young man who enters Yale feels, from the moment of
matriculation, that he is indeed in a large city, and must conform
to its regulations--that there are such beings as policemen and
magistrates, whom he cannot provoke with impunity. Even were this all,
it would be gain enough. But there is another gain of a far higher
nature. The student perceives that outside his college world lies a
larger world that he cannot overlook--a world whose society is worth
cultivating, whose opinions are backed by wealth and prestige. It does
not follow from this that he ceases to be a student. Companions and
study make him feel that he is leading a peculiar life, that he is a
member of an independent organization. But he does not feel--and this
is the main point--that he has retired from the world or that he can
set himself up against the world.

In this connection we have to be on our guard against the opposite
extreme--namely, the inference that the larger a city the better for
the college. The very largest cities are perhaps not favorable to
the growth of institutions of learning. Even in Germany, where the
university system rests upon a different basis and adapts itself more
readily to circumstances, the leading capitals, Berlin and Vienna, are
at a disadvantage. The expenses of living are so great as to deter all
but the wealthy or the very ambitious, and the pomp and pageantry
of court and nobility, the numerous _personnel_ of the several
departments of state, finance, war and justice throw the less
ostentatious votaries of science and letters into the shade.
Nevertheless, the universities of Berlin and Vienna can scarcely
be said to be threatened with permanent decline.