Guide to Princeton, the town, the university, Part 4

Author: Collins, Varnum Lansing, 1870-
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: Princeton, N.J., Princeton university press: etc., etc.]
Number of Pages: 120


USA > New Jersey > Mercer County > Princeton > Guide to Princeton, the town, the university > Part 4


Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).


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The monkey and tiger grotesques on Sev- enty-Nine are by Gutzon Borglum.


Prospect Avenue which is at right an- gles to Seventy-Nine is the club street. On the left is the Working Observatory, used for the Department of Astronomy, but with the exception of this and a few private residences on the lower right hand side, the street contains only upperclass clubs. The list of these is : on the right, Campus, Tow- er, Cannon, Quadrangle, Ivy, Cottage, Cap and Gown, Charter, Key and Seal, Cloister Inn; on the left, Gateway, Dial Lodge, Co- lonial, Tiger Inn, Elm.


The Osborn Field House (gift of Pro- fessor Henry F. Osborn, Class of 1877) on the corner of Prospect Avenue and Olden Street is used as a training house for ath- letic teams. Behind it is the University Field where all baseball games and espe- cially the Yale Game at Commencement are played. The Ferris Thompson Gateway and Wall (McKim, Mead and White, ar- chitects) on Prospect Avenue were pre- sented by Mr. Ferris Thompson, Class of 1888.


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Proceeding along Olden Street turn up William Street (first to left) passing the Princeton University Press (founded in the interest of the University by Mr. Charles Scribner, Class of 1875 (Ernest Flagg, ar- chitect) and maintained as a printing and publishing plant. It was incorporated as an "association not for pecuniary profit," and its affairs are directed by a council of which no one may be a member "who is not a Trustee, Professor or Graduate of Prince- ton University." Crossing Washington Road at the top of William Street and going on to the campus, to the left will be seen the long line of McCosh Hall, erected in 1907 (R. C. Gildersleeve, architect) and devoted entirely to lecture and recitation rooms and composing at present one side and part of another side of a contemplated quadrangle. The grotesques, gargoyles and other carving will repay examination.


The Mather Sun Dial in the court of McCosh Hall, a replica of the famous Turn- bull Sun Dial constructed in 1551 at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, was presented to Princeton by Sir William Mather of Lon-


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don (Hon. LL.D. 1905) to "symbolize the connection not only between Oxford and Princeton, but between Great Britain and America." The unveiling and presentation in 1907 were made on behalf of the donor by the British Ambassador, now Viscount Bryce. The monument has twenty-four dials in all. The square block supported by the shaft bears the arms of Bishop Fox, founder of Corpus Christi, Bishop Oldham (three owls), the University of Oxford, and the Royal Arms. It carries nineteen dials, seven in the escutcheon on the west face and nine in that on the east. Under the escutch- eons are vertical dials reading the hours and also indicating the months. The dial on the south face will not read during the summer owing to the sun's greater altitude at Prince- ton, causing the shadow of the point to fall outside the limits of the dial; but the east and west dials will read all the year round. The north face in the Turnbull dial has been lost and the few ornamental lines re- maining have been reproduced in the Prince- ton replica. In the cornice above the es- cutcheons are four mottoes, one on each


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side. Above the cornice is a pyramidal block containing four dials (north and south, dials with ornamental angular gnomons; east, heart-shaped hollowed dial, the shadow be- ing thrown by a tongue of stone ; west, semi- spherical hollowed dial, the gnomon being a rod). The frustrum supports a globe rep- resenting the earth on which stands a Peli- can, the symbol of Corpus Christi (the peli- can in legend piercing its own breast to feed the young with its blood). The stone is cut away leaving six bands (equatorial, north polar, south polar, zodiacal, and two others), raised above the solid core. The shaft bears one dial on the south side of its upper part, with an angular gnomon, the shadow telling the hour and its extremity the month.


The tablets on the shaft have no connec- tion with the dialling, that under the dial on the shaft being a perpetual calendar and giving the length of the year of various planets, and also certain lunar data.


Princeton undergraduate custom permits only seniors to sit on the base of the dial.


Passing through the arch in the corner of


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the court (note tablet in memory of Hunt- ington Wolcott Jackson, of the Class of 1863, erected by the Loyal Legion) we enter McCosh Walk, named also for the late President McCosh. The Walk forms part of the axis dividing the older northern por- tion of the campus from the newer southern part. Its continuation west leads directly to the Tiger Gateway between Blair and Little Halls, already mentioned. At the end of McCosh Walk is Murray-Dodge Hall, the college Y. M. C. A. This building, the older portion of which, containing the auditorium, was erected in 1879 from a bequest of Ham- ilton Murray, Class of 1872, while the new- er portion contains the lounge, various class and office rooms and apartments of the resi- dent secretary, was the gift of William E. Dodge and his son Cleveland H. Dodge, Class of 1879, in memory of W. Earl Dodge of the same class. It is the headquarters of the Philadelphian Society whose history dates back to the first quarter of the 19th century. From this society have grown the Intercollegiate Y. M. C. A., The Student Volunteer Movement, and the World's


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Christian Students' Federation. The sta- tue of the Christian Athlete facing Murray-Dodge commemorates the founding of the movement, and is in particular mem- ory of William Earl Dodge, Jr., Class of 1879 (note the inscriptions). To the left and rear of Murray-Dodge is the Art Mu- seum, architecturally unfinished. The Mu- seum is the headquarters of the Art Depart- ment of the University and besides a large library of books, photographs and slides il- lustrating the history of art, contains several collections of value and interest, especially the very representative Trumbull-Prime and the Livingston Collections of pottery, the Morse Collection of Japanese natsukes, and the Kienbusch Collection of Japanese sword hilts. Notice also the portrait of Colonel Aaron Burr, Class of 1772, believed to be by Gilbert Stuart; a replica of the bronze bust of Lincoln by L. W. Volk; the original plaster cast of the bronze statue of Richard Stockton, Class of 1748, Signer of the Dec- laration, by H. K. Brown in the Capitol at Washington, and a cast of the bronze relief of Jonathan Edwards, at Northampton,


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Mass. ; and the important squeezes and other results of the Princeton Expeditions to Sy- ria, besides collections of Greek and Roman coins, gems and glass, and specimens of Greek and Roman marble.


Returning to Murray Dodge, at the right is Marquand Chapel (R. M. Hunt, archi- tect), in which the University chapel exer- cises are held. The chapel was the gift of Henry G. Marquand and was built in 1881. The mural decorations are the Augustus St. Gaudens heroic bronze high relief of the late President McCosh, erected by the Class of 1879, a low relief memorial tablet in marble to Professor Joseph Henry by Louis St. Gaudens, a bronze relief of Professor Ar- nold Guyot by Olin Warren, set in a frag- ment of a glacial boulder, the rest of which lies by the steps of Nassau Hall, a marble medallion portrait tablet to the Rev. James O. Murray, first dean of the University, and three bronze tablets, one to the Faculty of the early sixties, one in memory of Dr. George Y. Taylor, of the Class of 1882, and Dr. Cortlandt V. R. Hodge, of the Class of 1893, medical missionaries killed in the Box-


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er Rebellion in China, and one to Daniel M. Rogers, of the Class of 1903, massacred in Turkey. The south and north windows by Lathrop are in memory of Frederick A. Marquand of the Class of 1876, and William Earl Dodge, of the Class of 1879, respective- ly. The west window by Tiffany is in mem- ory of Horatio W. Garrett, of the Class of 1895. A temporary memorial panel bearing the names of Princeton men who lost their lives in the war is placed in the vestibule.


To the left of the Chapel is the entrance gateway to Prospect, the official residence of the President of the University, a large and stately stone house with beautiful out- look over an Italian garden and a wide ex- panse of meadows and woods, with a view of the Highlands of the Navesink in the dis- tance. The house was built in 1849 by Thomas F. Potter, a resident of Princeton, on the site of the 18th century farmhouse of Colonel George Morgan, gentleman farm- er, Indian agent and pioneer western ex- plorer. Colonel Morgan was a scientific farmer whose estate was famous in his day, bringing him into association with Wash-


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ington, Franklin, and many other promi- nent men of the time. Young elms from his gardens were used in the planting of Independence Square at Philadelphia in 1785 ; he was a frequent contributor to agri- cultural journals, and was awarded a gold medal by the Philadelphia Society for Pro- moting Agriculture, the first to be given in America. Some of his "Prospect" account books are in the University Library. His friendly relations with the Delaware tribe of Indians are of record; family tradition states that it was at Prospect that he re- ceived in 1776 from the Delawares the title of Taimenend or Tamany, the name of their patron saint. In 1779 a delegation of ten Delaware chieftains visited him bringing to Princeton three boys to be educated at the college at government expense, and setting up their wigwams on the "Prospect" lawns. In 1781 some 2000 mutinous soldiers of the Pennsylvania Line, holding captive their general, Anthony Wayne, reached Princeton on their way to Philadelphia, and pitched camp at "Prospect." After Lafayette and others had failed to settle their grievances


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a Congressional committee headed by Presi- dent Joseph Reed of Pennsylvania and Dr. Witherspoon, President of Princeton, suc- ceeded in arranging matters. In 1783 the Princeton sessions of the Continental Con- gress were held at "Prospect" until the visi- tors moved to Nassau Hall. The room where Congress sat at "Prospect" was thereafter known as "the Congress Room." In 1794 troops on their way to put down the Whis- key Insurrection were quartered at "Pros pect." An account of the estate may be found in the Princeton University Bulletin for June 1904.


North of the chapel stands the Joseph Henry House, the official residence of the Dean of the College. This house was built for Professor Joseph Henry (see tablet in Chapel) in 1837 and originally stood on the opposite side of the campus, where Re- union Hall is located. It was to this house that Professor Henry used to send tele- graph messages from his classroom in the old Philosophical Hall, as already stated. The former name of the roadway on which the chapel and the Henry House now stands


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was College Lane forming the entrance to "Prospect."


North of the Henry House is Dickinson Hall, used entirely for lectures and recita- tions, erected during the beginning of Presi- dent McCosh's administration as one of the greatest needs of the institution, and named after the first president. The top floor con- sists of one large room called Examination Hall.


East of Dickinson is the Class of 1877 Laboratory at present used by the Depart- ment of Chemistry as a laboratory for or- ganic chemistry, but given by the Class of 1877 in 1888 as a biological laboratory.


Still further east is the John C. Green School of Science building erected in 1873 by the John C. Green Estate and de- voted entirely to the Department of Civil Engineering. Across Washington Road from the School of Science building is the Chemical Laboratory, built in 1891, also by the John C. Green Estate.


Returning past Dickinson Hall the Uni- versity Library is reached, composed of two buildings united by an entrance hall


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containing the delivery desk and the card catalogues. The building to the right on en- tering is the Chancellor Green Library, built by John C. Green in 1873, in memory of Chancellor Henry Woodhull Green (Class of 1820) of New Jersey, and the first separate library building owned by the Uni- versity. It is now the main reading room of the library and contains some 30,000 ref- erence books and periodicals. The marble busts (beginning with the right) are Presi- dent Witherspoon (presented by the Class of 1876), President McCosh (presented by the Class of 1873), John C. Green, brother of the Chancellor, founder of the John C. Green School of Science, and benefactor of the University, President Maclean, Class of 1816 (by Calverley), and Charles Hodge, Class of 1815. Behind the staircase lead- ing to the gallery is the Charles E. Green Memorial Alcove, in memory of Charles E. Green, of the Class of 1860, son of the Chancellor and a trustee of the University for many years and, as administrator of the John C. Green Estate, one of the Uni- versity's most generous and consistent bene-


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factors. The Trustees' Room at the west end of the Chancellor Green Library is the meeting room of the Board of Trustees. The oak panellings and decorations (Ralph Adams Cram, architect) are a further me- morial of John C. and Charles E. Green.


The portion of the building south of the Chancellor Green Library is the Pyne Li- brary Building in form of a hollow square (W. A. Potter, architect), erected by the late Mrs. Percy Rivington Pyne as a sesqui- centennial gift, and containing the main collection housed in two stack buildings, administration and cataloguing rooms, bind- ery, photostat rooms, seminary rooms for research, special reading rooms for History and Political Science and for Economics, and the Exhibition Room. Portions of the twenty-six special collections of books and manuscripts owned by the Univer- sity Library may be seen in the Exhibi- tion Room. A complete list is to be found in the University Catalogue. Mention may 'be made of the Morgan Collection of Virgils (670 volumes, chiefly prior to the 18th century), presented by J. S. Morgan,


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of the Class of 1888, and containing all the rarest editions with scores of individual copies of extraordinary association interest ; the Autograph Manuscript Collection (8,000 documents) relating chiefly to the history of the University; the Garrett and the Lytle European War Collections ; the Collection of Cuneiform Documents (1,100 items) ; the Patterson Collection of rare and choicely bound books, chiefly editions of Horace (1,000 volumes) ; the Hutton Memorial Collection (over 800 association books, autographed portraits, paintings, letters, playbills, etc.) from the library of the late Laurence Hutton; and the extremely remarkable Meirs Collec- tion of Cruikshankiana, presented by Mr. R. W. Meirs of the Class of 1888. This collection is probably the most complete of its kind, containing about 900 volumes of Cruikshankiana, with nearly 700 broadsides, original drawings, paintings, and autograph letters by or relating to the artist, George Cruikshank. In an alcove of the Exhibition Room is the unique Hutton Collection of Deathmasks-over 80 masks (life and


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death) presented by Mr. Laurence Hutton, and described in his volume Portraits in Plaster, which gives in detail the curious history of this largest single collection of its kind in existence. Other unusual collec- tions, kept in separate alcoves elsewhere in the building, are the Princeton Univer- sity Collection (8,000 volumes of Prince- toniana, relating to the history of the University or written by and about alumni and officers of the University, including the large collection presented by Col. William Libbey, Class of 1877) ; the Garrett Col- lection of Oriental Manuscripts (2,400 in number) chiefly in Arabic but in- cluding some 25 other languages; the ex- traordinary Pliny Fisk Statistical Li- brary (5,400 volumes, 14,500 pamphlets, 44,000 broadsides, etc., and several hundred thousand clippings mounted and classified) ; and the Pierson Civil War Collection (6,700 volumes, 2,500 pamphlets and several thousand clippings ). The Benjamin Strong European War Collection, con- taining full sets of official publications, state papers, pamphlets, proclamations, posters,


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emergency currency and newspaper clip- pings, all relating to the European War, is distinctly exceptional and will be of inesti- mable value in future years as historical ma- terial on the war. The newspaper history alone consists of over 90 enormous volumes. Among the thousands of posters are the re- cruiting posters of the Allies, and national loan posters including the American Liberty Loan posters. Scores of cities are repre- sented among the sets of emergency cur- rency, some of which was issued a few days after the war broke out in August 1914. The collection includes all kinds of printed matter such as desk cards and envelope "stickers." Much of the ephemeral material is unique and cannot be duplicated.


The Library contains 400,000 volumes ex- clusive of pamphlets. During the term it is open on week days from 8 a. m. to 10 p. m., and on Sundays from 12 m. to 5 p. m. In vacation it is open from 9 a. m. to I p. m.


Leaving the Library by the west entrance, the main quadrangle of the campus is reached, formed by the Library, the marble Halls, West College and the rear of Nas-


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sau Hall. Note the Library Tower, and the statues over the arch, above and front, James Madison, Class of 1771, President of the United States, and at the side Oliver Ellsworth, Class of 1766, Chief Justice of the United States; below are Presidents Witherspoon (left) and McCosh (right). On the tower is a large sun dial with the motto "Pereunt et imputantur."


In the arch is a bronze tablet to the mem- ory of Algernon B. Roberts, of the Class of 1896, and at the corner of the south wall a. tablet to the memory of George K. Edwards, Class of 1889, "a loyal son of Princeton," whose undergraduate room in East College, where he died during Commencement in 1897, was approximately on this spot.


The Big Cannon mentioned earlier, and in the center of the quadrangle, is a Revolu- tionary relic which after lying on the cam- pus for many years was taken to New Brunswick during the War of 1812 to de- fend the city from an expected enemy at- 'tack. It remained there until 1836 when it was brought back to Princeton by under- graduates for a Fourth of July celebration ;


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it was planted in its present position in 1838. Around it are held the Cannon Exercises of Commencement Week, championship bon- fires and other celebrations. It also was the scene formerly of the freshman and sopho- more "Cannon Rush."


The Little Cannon between the two Halls, and behind the Franklin Murphy Flagstaff (given by Franklin Murphy, Jr., Class of 1895) is also Revolutionary and for many years was used as a corner post on Nassau Street. Removed to the campus it was the cause of the "Cannon War" with Rutgers College in 1875 when it was taken from Princeton to New Brunswick by Rut- gers students under the mistaken impression that it was a lost cannon belonging to that city. After a retaliatory raid by Princeton students the respective faculties of the two institutions appointed a joint committee which settled the question amicably and finally. Behind the Little Cannon has been placed a German field-piece captured at Château Thierry, France, in which sector during the European War Princetonians were especially conspicuous.


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West College, a dormitory built in 1836, is the duplicate of East College which stood on the opposite side of the quadrangle until removed in 1896 to make room for the new library building.


The present marble buildings of The Halls (east, the American Whig Society ; west, the Cliosophic Society) date from 1893 being erected on the sites of the wood- en structures similar in appearance built in the end of the thirties. Previously, the Societies occupied rooms in Nassau Hall, Stanhope Hall and Philosophical Hall. They are the oldest college literary socie- ties in America having had a continuous his- tory of more than 150 years. Founded be- fore the Revolution (about 1765) as the Well-Meaning and the Plain Dealing So- cieties, the latter in 1769 assumed the name, the American Whig Society, and in 1770 the Well-Meaning Society took the name of the Cliosophic Society. They were secret literary societies but with far wider scope than the Greek fraternities which were ban- ished from Princeton. Until recent years they exerted a most important influence on


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the campus being the center of college rival- ries and loyalties until the extraordinary growth and organization of undergraduate extra-curriculum activities overshadowed their purely literary and forensic purposes. The buildings contain libraries, auditoriums, reading rooms, and recreation rooms and the societies maintain numerous prize contests, and regular courses in composition, debating, and oratory, on the completion of which di- plomas are awarded. Older graduates of Princeton have considered the training of the Halls the most valuable part of their col- lege experience. Among the founders of Clio Hall were William Paterson, Oliver Ellsworth, and Luther Martin ; among those of Whig Hall were James Madison, Hugh Brackenridge and Philip Freneau. See Charles R. Williams, The Cliosophic So- ciety, published at the sesquicentennial of of the founding of the Society, for a record of Clio Hall.


The Graduate College. The easiest ap- proach to the Graduate College is by way of University Place, Dickinson Street, Alex- ander Street, and the driveway skirting the


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campus of the Princeton Theological Semi- nary on the south. The group of buildings will be seen on reaching the edge of the University Golf Links. The Class of 1886 Golf Club House is passed on the left (presented by the Class for the use of the University Golf Club and containing the usual conveniences, with dormitory and kitchen facilities for members of the Class at their reunions ).


The Graduate College (R. A. Cram, architect) stands on part of the Revolution- ary battlefield where the closing engagement of January 3, 1777, occurred. The retreat of the British followed in general the direc- tion toward their base in Nassau Hall which the visitor has just followed in the reverse order, with the difference, to be noted, that at the time of the battle this whole region was farm land and open country.


Visitors may obtain a guide at the Por- ter's Lodge, in the main entrance. The Graduate College group of buildings is formed around a central quadrangle called Thomson College (named for U. S. Sen- ator John R. Thomson, by his widow Mrs.


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Josephine Thomson Swann of Princeton, part of whose estate was left by her to the Graduate College). The student residential and social rooms, and the kitchen and ser- vice quarters are in this portion of the group. Adjoining the main college gate is the Cleveland Tower, 40 feet square and 173 feet high, with a memorial chamber in its base where it is hoped a statue of Presi- dent Cleveland may be placed. On the arch is the inscription: "In remembrance of Grover Cleveland, President of the United States. Public office is a public trust." The tower was erected in 1912 by public subscriptions of the people of the United States as a memorial of Mr. Cleve- land. At the time of his death he was a resident of Princeton, a trustee of the Uni- versity, and as chairman of the Trustees' Committee on the Graduate School was deeply interested in the planning and erec- tion of the Graduate College. There is a curious echo in the memorial chamber. A turret stair leads to the top of the tower, from which the finest view in Princeton is obtained.


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At the southwest corner of Thomson quadrangle is the Pyne Tower (named for the donor, Mr. M. Taylor Pyne, of the Class of 1877) which contains besides the apartment of the Master in residence the vestibule connecting the Common Room with Procter Hall, the dining hall and chief public room of the Graduate Col- lege. This hall was erected by William Cooper Procter, Class of 1883, as a memo- rial to his parents. It is 36 by 108 feet. The great western Memorial Window over the high table is the co-labor of Mr. and Mrs. William Willet, the artists of the chancel window of the West Point Chapel. The window represents the Light of the World illuminating the Seven Liberal Arts of Christian Learning. In the predella, or lower part, of the window, is the Child Jesus in the Temple, surrounded by members of the Sanhedrin, among whom may be noticed Nicodemus on his left, Joseph of Arimathea on his right, with the long beard, and Ga- maliel studying a scroll of the law. Above the predella is the Latin text: "Qui ad justitiam erudiunt multos quasi stellae in


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perpetuas aeternitates" (They that instruct many in righteousness shall shine as the stars for ever and ever).


The seven lancet windows above the pre- della contain the figures of Seven Liberal Arts-Dialectica (or Logic) in the center,. on the right Rhetorica, Astronomica, Musi- ca; on the left Grammatica, Geometrica, Arithmetica. At the base of each lancet is emblazoned a shield with a device appro- priate to the Art symbolized above it. The traceries above the lancets are filled with stars in a deep blue night sky. Cut in the stone below the window is the Latin text : "Nec vocemini magistri quia magister ves- ter unus est Christus" (And call not your- selves masters, for One is your Master- even Christ).


The manner of treatment is the medie- val, the artists having looked to the 14th cen- tury for their inspiration ; only pure colors (about eight in number) are used; and these have been superimposed on one an- other without paints or enamels ; the glass is blown, and the coloring imperishable. The window at sunset is unforgettable.


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The carving over the fireplace in Procter Hall is intricate and curious. Hidden in the foliage of the oaktree may be found lizard's, squirrels, caterpillars, butterflies, a rabbit, etc., and a tiger. The portraits in the Hall are the gift of Mr. Thomas S. Clarke, Class of 1882, and the great organ in the gallery is the gift of Mr. Henry C. Frick. The carved beams and rafters of the roof are of oak, chiefly from old ship tim- bers. The panelling and screen are also oak and repay close study.


Wyman House, the residence of the Dean of the Graduate School, adjoins Proc- ter Hall. Over the mantel in the Dean's library are hung the flint-lock musket, pow- der horn and sword carried in the Battle of Princeton by the father of Mr. Isaac C. Wyman, Class of 1848, who bequeathed his estate to the Graduate College. The sword and musket were carried in the French and Indian War by Mr. Wyman's grandfather.


The Dean's Garden, under the shadow of the great tower, contains ivies from Haddon Hall, England, from the Martin Luther


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House at Wittenberg, and from Bemerton, the home of George Herbert. Set in the garden wall are window arches from Uni- versity College, Oxford, of which Shelley was a member, and window bases from Christ's College, Cambridge, Milton's col- lege, given by the Master of Christ's, Vice- Chancellor Shipley.


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