The roots of Yale University
November 28th, 2008
The roots of Yale University can be dated back to the middle of the 17th century, when colonial clerics led an attempt to found a college in New Haven for preserving the European liberal education tradition in the New World. This dream was completed in 1701, as the privilege was given for a school “where Youth can be taught in the Sciences and Arts and via the benediction of Almighty God can be suited for Publick employment in Civil State and Church alike.”
In 1718, the school had got a new name - “Yale College” - in thankfulness to the Welsh storekeeper Elihu Yale donated the profit from the selling of nine bales’s goods and a portrait of King George I and 417 books.
Yale College continued in its existence after the American Revolutionary War and it had developed fast. The 19th-120th centuries brought the organization of the professional and graduate schools, which would make Yale a real university. In 1810, the Yale School of Medicine was privileged, followed by the Divinity School, the Law School, and the Graduate School of Sciences and Arts, the schools of Art, Music, Forestry and Environmental Studies, Nursing, Drama, Architecture, and Management in 1974.