Yale's Alumni Dinner.

Last Friday night the annual alumni dinner of Yale was held at Delmonico's. Hon. Chauncey M. Depew presided. Mr. E. C. Wetmore represented Harvard; Rev. Dr. Van Dych. Princeton. Mayor Hewitt was to have represented Columbia, but was unable to appear. After dinner, Mr. Depew delivered one of those speeches for which he is so famous. He devoted the introductory part of his address to a discussion of the growing interest in alumni dinners throughout the country.

"After the war, the great colleges advanced with a step which kept pace with the highest progress of the age. Yale's new president. with his youth, experience, administrative talent and popularity, became the responsible manager of all departments and the sole administrator of the young republic.

"There is this difference," continued Mr. Depew, "between these two greatest and most beneficent governments earth-that of the United States and that of the University of Yale-one does not know how to handle a surplus in the treasury and the other is showing marvelous ability with a deficiency. Not that Yale is in debt or running behind, but her resources and income are unequal to her superb preparation for expansion and her great opportunities. I have no hesitation in saying, from a personal examination of the subject, that if the liberal wealth which is so freely bestowed when rightly informed could be given, to the extent of three or four millions, to Yale University, there would be in New Haven within five or six years an institution of learning so full, rounded and complete in every department of education, of thought and of practical work that it would have no equal in any country of the world. Its influence would be felt through the magnificent equipment of its graduates, to the lasting honor and glory of the country.

"The graduate of thirth years ago could not enter the freshman class of to day. His education has come to him largely through the hard knocks and trying experiences of the making of a career, and yet he feels more strongly than any one else the advantages of an all-embracing university."

After expressing his admiration for the Sheffield foundation, the Peabody, the Sloane, the Dwight Hall contributions, the buildings which immortalize the donors and aggrandize the college, Mr. Depew continued:-

"But we say to the corporation and faculty, 'some things are sacred and must not be touched. Increase your improvements, but no matter how weighty the consideration for the change spare the college fence.' It is connected with associations that are tender and reminiscences that are rich beyond the power of eloquence or poetry to portray. The seat upon the college fence was our first title of man-hood. From it we viewed for the first time that beatific vision of the New Haven student, the New Haven girl; and whenever we return, no matter how long have been the intervening years, she looks as fresh and beautiful as if she had drunk at the fountain of perennial youth."

The athletic record of the year. Mr. Depew said, read like the triumphal announcements of the heralds at the Olympian games. "With bat and ball and oar, on land on water, the blue has been uniformly triumphant, and Yale reigns supreme," he said. "Columbia cheers and strives to imitate, Princeton applauds and despairs, and Harvard goes back to Cambridge and kicks, but her misfortune is that she does not kick hard enough at the right time. The athletic triumphs of Yale are celebrated by the increasing numbers of the freshman class, for the students at the preparatory schools know what constitute the higher branches of a liberal education."