Latin Oration at Yale.

Could anything better show the old fogy conservatism of Yale than the following editorial from the Record?

"We hear that it is proposed to add a Latin oration to the commencement day programme. This seems a protest on the part of the faculty against the ultra radical classics, and perhaps a mild assertion of the fact that there are students at Yale who have acquired at least a speaking acquaintance with the classics. And this is by no means an unreasonable exhibition. The Sheff. seniors write theses upon chemistry, engineering, machinery, and other subjects connected with their courses; the theologies deliver embryo sermons; the lawyers amateur pleas; the academics launch on the shivering audiences grand utterances of political economy, literature, biography-and why not classics? A fair proportion of time is devoted to the dead languages, and why should they not make a due appearance at commencement? While other colleges have made a grand ado about superstitions, traditions and fetiches, Yale has made, not the classics less important, but other studies more important. In the appointment of a Latin orator, Yale boldly avows her intentions not to give up studies which have been of inestimable value to generations of students, just as surely as in each of her many forward steps she shows the spirit of true progress."