04/08/2006 May Day - Sheffield Scientific School

“I thought perhaps you might be members of that lowly section of the university known as the Sheffield Scientific School” (page 96).

That quote just stuck out in the story. I wasn’t sure why Peter was making a derogative statement about this school. What is it about Sheffield that the Yale students dislike and how is the school connected to Yale?
Founded in 1851 as Yale Scientific school, Sheffield Scientific School was later renamed for Joseph E. Sheffield. In it’s time; Sheffield was fairly innovative by trying to integrate the applied sciences to the more classic arts that colleges were teaching at the time.

“Loomis Havemeyer stated: “During the second half of the nineteenth century Yale College and Sheffield Scientific School, separated by only a few streets, were two separate countries on the same planet” (Wikipedia).

The classical students thought that the applied science that the students at Sheffield were learning was worthless. When Dean states that he believes a “Sheff student” (page 119) stole Peter’s jacket, he is doing so because at the time science probably wasn’t the best field to study in a society that was obsessed with money. The whole idea is the very definition of ironic. Today every time I share my field of choice they always ask, “What are you going to do with that degree? Why not take computer science?”

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. “May Day”. Tales of the Jazz Age. First Pine Street Books: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2003.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheffield_Scientific_School>
The picture is from - http://www.astro.yale.edu/dept/overview/images/scheffield.jpg