Page "Ezra Stiles" Paragraph 13

As president of Yale, Stiles also became its first professor of Semitics, and required all students to study Hebrew ( as was also the case at Harvard ); his first commencement address in September, 1781 ( no ceremonies having been held during the American Revolutionary War ) was delivered in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic.

By 1790, however, he was forced to face failure in instilling an interest in the language in the student body, writing