Stevens, John Austin, 1795-1874

New York City businessman and financier.

The frail and unassuming Jeremiah Day exerted an enormous influence on the development of Yale University during the early 19th century. After graduating from Yale in 1795, Day was installed as principal of Timothy Dwight's academy at Greenfield, Connecticut, for three years, before receiving the call back to his alma mater in 1798. Serving initially as a tutor, and licensed to preach by the New Haven West Association in 1800, Day was promoted to Professor of Mathematics and Moral Philosophy in 1801, a position he filled with competence, if not brilliance. In the short span of four years, he composed three widely-used texts in the field, An Introduction to Algebra (1814), A Treatise on Plane Geometry (1815), and The Mathematical Principles of Navigation and Surveying (1817).

The hand-picked successor to the towering Dwight, Day was elevated to the presidency -- after some hesitation on his part -- following Dwight's death in 1817, the same year he was finally ordained in the Congregational ministry. Despite precarious health, including a heart attack in 1836 and recurrent bout of angina thereafter, Day remained in office for 29 years, and occupied a seat on the Yale Corporation for an additional two decades thereafter. During his presidency, he oversaw the establishment of a separate Theology Department (later the Divinity School) and the granting of the college's first law degree, but perhaps most importantly, he was midwife to a new philosophy of undergraduate education that drew a careful distinction between a general undergraduate program, "the foundation of a superior education," and the more applied program espoused by the professional schools. Day died in 1867 at the age of 94.

John Austin Stevens, a graduate of the Yale class of 1813, was the long-time president of the Bank of Commerce in New York City.