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Mr. Jefferson Misquoted.

NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED

The Yale News prints the following correction of the reports sent to the newspapers about Mr. Joseph Jefferson's address at Yale last week:

"The press of the country appears to have been misinformed as to Mr. Jefferson's allusion to College dramatics. One of the New York papers had the following: 'Mr. Jefferson disapproved of the practice at Yale and many colleges of giving no attention to pure dramatic art, but presenting instead farce comedies, such as "Mr. Napoleon," the play in preparation by the Yale secret societies. Mr. Jefferson said he looked on the matter as a sign of degeneracy.' It must be remembered that Mr. Jefferson was speaking of the college men who intended to go on the stage. The reporter above quoted has misrepresented the facts. What the speaker said was as follows: "The best plays are the old English comedies, because naturally the students in a university will be sufficiently educated to appreciate the fine writing of these plays - those of Sheridan, Ben Jonson, Shakespeare, etc. By appreciating them, you can render them better than those who cannot appreciate them. If you were to begin to play say farce comedy for your own amusement and the amusement of the audience, that would not be study, it would be a case of claptrap. That I should think would be a very dangerous thing for students to begin on. They can indulge in that after a few years when they become old and respectable. In their studies they would better confine themselves to those plays that have good literary merit.' "

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