HARVARD IN 1784.

The four years of residence at college were spent in the acquisition of Latin and Greek, a smattering of mathematics, enough of logic to distinguish barbara from celarent, enough of rhetoric to know climax from metonomy, and as much of metaphysics as would enable one to talk learnedly about a subject he did not understand. The students lodged in the dormitories and ate at the commons. The food then partaken of with thankfulness would now create a riot in a poor-house. At breakfast, which was served at sunrise in summer, and at day-break in winter, there was doled out to each student a small can of unsettled coffee, a size of biscuit and a size of butter weighing generally about an ounce. Dinner was the staple meal and at this the student was regaled with a pound of meat. Two days in the week, Monday and Thursday, the meal was boiled, and in college language, these were known as boiling days. On the five remaining days the meat was roasted, and to them the nickname of roasting days was fastened. With the flesh went always two potatoes. When boiling days came round pudding and cabbage, wild peas and dandelions were added. The only delicacy to which no stint was applied was the cider, a beverage then fast supplanting the small beer of the Colonial days. This was brought to the men in pewter cans, which were passed from mouth to mouth, and when emptied were again replenished. For supper there was a bowl of milk and a size of bread. The hungry Oliver who wished for more was forced to order, or, as the phrase went, "size it" from the kitchen. - [From McMaster's History of the United States.