Reminiscences.

In talking with a '64 man a short time ago, the writer was much amused at the picture of life here at that time, and also impressed with the change which such a comparatively short time has worked in the college discipline and surroundings. Only what are now the oldest buildings were standing then, the old gymnasium and Gray's were completed at about the time '64 graduated.

The prayer petition, he said, used to be circulated every year as it is now, although with perhaps not quite so much vigor. The discipline for non-attendance at prayers was very severe, and the culprit took a prominent position in the displeasure of the faculty. The narrator got excused early in his freshman year as he lived out of prayer limits. Soon after he moved up under the shadow of Appleton and dwelt there a year before the validity of his excuse was questioned. He was then summoned by the president and later called before a full meeting of the faculty where, after most of the prominent officers of the college had questioned him in turn, he was publicly reprimanded. He said that he regarded this as the most interesting event of his college course, for he was then thrown into conversational contact with men who had been famous for years. There are no such opportunities held open to the undergraduate of to-day; he is held off at arms length while he is being castigated and gets in return little of that polish which comes from association with venerable men! The same gentleman was also privately reprimanded for going to chapel with uncombed head, for not observing a sufficiently religious demeanor, for putting on his hat too soon and for making undue haste in getting out.

Massachusetts was then in part a dormitory and the basement of Harvard was used for recitation rooms. Here James Russell Lowell heard classes and lectured on his favorite topics. In Holden, on warm days, the adhesive black-painted benches used to hold the students in fixed attention during lectures and render rapid departure impossible.

Students were not allowed to collect in the yard or on the steps of any of the buildings. If half a dozen men grouped themselves together after a recitation, a tutor would come along and disperse them. No smoking was allowed in the yard or on the streets of Cambridge. Any one being seen to enter a place where intoxicants were sold was liable to private and perhaps public reprimand.

Much more freedom than now was allowed in the rooms of the students and in this way part compensation was made for the restrictions in the yard. The entries were lighted by private subscription, a few men clubbing together occasionally and buying a lantern or two. These would last but a short time, as some belated carouser usually found a happy finale for his "bat" in smashing them. Then the entries would remain in Egyptian darkners until the next subscription had been made and new lanterns hung up.

Probably the most marked change in college discipline has come in the matter of personal direction which was then supposed to take the place of parental discipline. One of the many rules laid down was that every undergraduate must wear a black coat on Sundays. Disobedience to this law incurred nearly the same punishment as drunkenness or any of the other capital crimes. The narrator remembers a circumstance in connection with the rule which is worth repeating. One of his friends, a quiet and studious young man, not knowing the regulation, had provided himself before entering college with a Sunday suit of some dark material. He had not been long here before he was summoned before a member of the faculty and his attention called to edict of the Bible. Being in straitened circumstances and not able to pay for a new coat, he requested to use his other suit instead. He was told that there was no excuse allowed. Rather than leave college he was compelled to put himself at the mercy of a Cambridge tailor and get trusted for the coat.

Such was life at Harvard only twenty-three years ago, and such was the toleration of religious observance.