WHICH MAY BE SKIPPED
Yardley Hall School is at Wissining, Conn., and Wissining――for it is
no use looking at your map unless it is a very detailed one――is on
Long Island Sound, about halfway between New Haven and Newport. It may
be that you know all about Yardley, in which case this chapter is not
for you, and you have only to pass it over, and no hard feelings. I
might take it for granted that everyone knows Yardley, just as they
know Exeter and Andover and Groton and St. Mark’s and Lawrenceville
and Hillton and a dozen more. But if I did I’d probably hear from
it, for there is always some one who “doesn’t know.” I once heard a
middle-aged gentleman, who sat across from me in the parlor car, remark
as the train stopped at New Haven: “New Haven? There’s some sort of an
educational establishment for boys here, isn’t there?” So, perhaps,
there are those who, when the train runs through Wissining, observe
the cluster of buildings on the hilltop without knowing that they are
looking at Yardley Hall School.
Yardley is not very old, as New England schools go, having been
established no longer ago than 1870. It was Oxford School for Young
Gentlemen in those days, and the buildings were but two in number.
The founder and head master, Dr. Tobias Hewitt, an Englishman and a
graduate of Oxford University, managed for a quarter of a century to
conduct the school with credit and pecuniary success. Then for some
reason the enrollment dwindled and the institution, which by this time
boasted four buildings, passed into the hands of a stock company. Then
came changes. Oxford School became Yardley Hall School, the forms
became classes, the masters instructors. More buildings were erected
and a great deal of money spent. Doctor Hewitt retained an interest and
remained Principal. Nowadays Yardley is one of the finest preparatory
schools in the country. If you doubt my word you have only to ask a
Yardley student or graduate. The property comprises some forty acres of
hill and meadow and woodland that runs from the shore of the sound back
a good three quarters of a mile to the Wissining River, that little
sluggish inconsequent stream that divides Wissining from her more
citified neighbor, Greenburg.
There are four dormitories, Whitson, Clarke, Dudley, and Merle, Oxford
Hall, containing the offices, the Principal’s apartments, recitation
rooms, laboratories, library, assembly hall and society headquarters,
and the Kingdon Gymnasium, one of the best appointed in the land.
These buildings, with the exception of Dudley, describe roughly a half
circle around the face of the hill, with Oxford, the oldest and least
attractive, in the center. In front of Oxford is a terrace called The
Prospect, from which a wide view of sea and land may be had. Dudley
Hall, the senior dormitory, is more retiring and stands back from the
other buildings, across the Yard. Southward the ground slopes abruptly
to the railroad cut, through which the main-line trains dash and long
freights crawl day and night. There is a rustic bridge here, and if
you keep on the paths lead you through a dense, well-kept woods to the
beach and the sound. Northward the land slopes more gradually to the
river and the tennis courts, athletic field and boathouse. Eastward
lies the golf links with its puzzling nine-hole course. The river
twists and winds north-eastward, and divides to make room for two tiny
islands. Across the stream lies Meeker’s Marsh, with Marsh Lake hidden
behind alder and swamp willow and rushes. Here is the home of plover
and snipe and duck, and, truth compels me to add, mosquitoes.
There are five classes at Yardley: Preparatory, Fourth, Third, Second,
and First. The Preparatory Class fellows room in Merle, under the
matronly care of Mrs. Ponder, popularly known as “Emily,” and allude
to themselves as “preps.” First Class men call themselves seniors,
and, with the Second Class, constitute the Upper Classmen. There are
some two hundred and seventy students in Yardley, their ages ranging
from twelve to twenty. Yardley sends most of her product to Yale,
while Broadwood Academy, her dearest foe, supplies each year a fair
proportion of the entering class at Princeton. Broadwood is situated
some three miles inland from Greenburg, and at Yardley they like
to speak of it maliciously as a “fresh-water school.” Yardley and
Broadwood are old-time rivals, meeting each year on the gridiron,
diamond, track, and rink. For the glory of Yardley let me say that
the Dark Blue has triumphed more often than the green of Broadwood,
although there are pages of history relating to dual contest which
Yardley fellows skim hurriedly.