Rexford Steuben (2 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Good. No Jacket. Limited Edition. A bound collection of catalogues and Edwards 1842 oration poem, Silliman's 1842 address, with Dicherson's 1842 oration bound in worn half leather with William A. Durie's name of the front cover. Durie was a Yale grad and well-know New Jersey homeopathic physician. Circa 1841 with some material dated 1842. Included are the Biographical Record of the Class of 1838 in Yale College and Memorial of the Class of 1830 Yale College. 3 volumes in total. Book.

A sammelband of twelve Yale-related catalogues, all published between 1838 and 1842, and likely compiled by Steuben Rexford, member of the Yale class of 1842. Included are copies of the Yale College catalogues listing officers and students for each of the four years that Rexford attended; catalogues for each of the campus literary societies - the Linonian Society, Brothers in Unity, the Calliopean Society, and Psi Upsilon - listing the names of members, past and present; as well as the published catalogues of three of the societies' libraries. Tipped in among the college catalogues is a single leaf on which is written in manuscript a poem, perhaps by Rexford, for what was likely the occasion of Yale Presentation Day (now Class Day). The titles of the pamphlets, in the order in which they appear, are as follows: 1) [Yale]: Catalogue of the Officers and Students in Yale College, 18381839. [New Haven: B.L. Hamlen, 1838]. 35pp. SABIN 105753. AMERICAN IMPRINTS 59361. 2) [Yale]: Catalogue of the Officers and Students in Yale College, 1839-1840. [New Haven]: B.L. Hamlen, [1839]. 35pp. SABIN 105753. 3) [Yale]: Catalogue of the Officers and Students in Yale College, 1840-41. [New Haven]: B.L. Hamlen, [1840]. 35pp. SABIN 105753. AMERICAN IMPRINTS 40-7162. 4) [Yale]: Catalogue of the Officers and Students in Yale College, 1841-42. New Haven: B.L. Hamlen, 1841. 35pp. AMERICAN IMPRINTS 41-5655. 5) [Yale]: Catalogus Senatus Academici, et Eorum Qui Munera et Officia Academica Gesserunt, Quique Aliquovis Gradu Exornati Fuerunt, in Collegio Yalensi, Novi-Portus, in Republica Connecticutensi. Novi-Portus: B.L Hamlen, 1841. 127pp. SABIN 105782. 6) [Yale]: [A Catalogue of the Linonian Society, of Yale College, Founded September Twelfth, 1753]. New Haven: Hitchcock & Stafford, 1841]. [3]-83pp. Lacking titlepage. 7) [Yale]: A Catalogue of the Society of Brothers in Unity, Yale College, Founded 1768. New Haven: Hitchcock & Stafford, 1841. 92pp. SABIN 105860. 8) [Yale]: Catalogue of the Calliopean Society, Yale College. 1839. New Haven: B.L. Hamlen, 1839. 32pp. SABIN 105870. AMERICAN IMPRINTS 59362. 9) [Psi Upsilon Society, Yale]: Catalogue of Members, January 1842. New Haven: Hitchcock & Stafford, [1842]. 18pp. plus engraved plate. 10) [Yale]: Catalogue of the Library of the Linonian Society, Yale College. October, 1841. New Haven: Hitchcock & Stafford, 1841. [2],162pp. AMERICAN IMPRINTS 41-5656. SINGERMAN, AMERICAN LIBRARY CATALOGUES 155. 11) [Yale]: Catalogue of the Library Belonging to the Society of Brothers in Unity, Yale College, June, 1838. New Haven: Hitchcock & Stafford, 1838. [2],106pp. SABIN 105869. AMERICAN IMPRINTS 53767. SINGERMAN, AMERICAN LIBRARY CATALOGUES 135. 12) [Yale]: Catalogue of the Library of the Calliopean Society, Yale College, October, 1841. New Haven: Hitchcock & Stafford, 1841. 84pp. SINGERMAN, AMERICAN LIBRARY CATALOGUES 145. At the time these pamphlets were published, the presidency of Jeremiah Day was nearing an end. The longest serving president in Yale history, Day had steered Yale on a steady, consistent, and some would say conservative course. The official catalogues contained herein reveal a student body made up of some 400 undergraduates, plus roughly another 150 graduate students all bound for one of the three professions: the law, the ministry, or medicine. The catalogues describe a curriculum still dominated by the classics: Greek and Latin, rhetoric and oratory, natural and moral philosophy. At Yale, as at other American colleges at the time, piety continued to take priority over intellect: morning and evening chapel was compulsory as were Sunday worship services. Echoing the famous Yale Report of 1828, which effectively enshrined the classical curriculum at American colleges until after the Civil War, the catalogues maintain that the object of an undergraduate education is "to form a proper symmetry and balance of character" and to "give that furniture, and discipline, and elevation to the mind." There is evidence here, however, that Yale was gradually opening itself up to reform. Added to the usual course on natural philosophy - what today we would call physics - was a "course on Chemistry, Mineralogy, [and] Geology" taught by Professor Benjamin Silliman. And, while not yet officially part of the formal curriculum, instruction in the modern languages from "Gentlemen well qualified" to teach them was available "to those students who desire it, at their own expense." While the first third of this collection, with its official college catalogues, is devoted largely to Yale's formal, institutionally sanctioned curriculum, the rest of the pamphlets shed light on what historian Frederick Rudolph has described as "the unseen revolution" that took place in American higher education in the 19th century, namely the emergence of the student-led extracurriculum, and at the heart of the extracurriculum in this period were the student literary societies. As James McLachlan explains, "student literary societies engrossed more of the interests and activities of the students than any other aspect of college life. Elaborately organized, self-governing youth groups, student literary societies were, in effect, colleges within colleges. They enrolled most of the students, constructed - and taught - their own curricula, granted their own diplomas, selected and bought their own books, operated their own libraries, developed and enforced elaborate codes of conduct among their members, and set the personal goals and ideological tone for a majority of the student body." At Yale there were four such societies at the time: the Linonian Society, Brothers in Unity, the Calliopean Society, and Psi Upsilon. Linonia and Brothers in Unity had been founded in the 18th century as rival societies. They were joined in 1819 by Calliope, made up mainly of students from the South, and by Psi Upsilon in 1839. The present volume contains catalogues for each of these four literary societies, some with brief.