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,[31] 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[32] 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[33] 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.