Harvard's Bell Has a History All Its Own Says Veteran Toller Who Takes Pride in Traditional Old English Stroke

The bell in Harvard Hall rings either 44 or 46 strokes on the hours throughout the day, for Sunday chapel it rings between 120 and 124 times, while at 7 o'clock in the morning, and for morning chapel, it rings with a unique stroke which has been used since Harvard was founded.

These and other little-known facts about the bell which tolls off the hours for thousands within ear-shot of Harvard square were revealed to a CRIMSON reporter recently by Mr. Arthur Conant who for 13 years has been the bell-ringer at the University.

"I give the hourly bell about 20 strokes", said Mr. Conant, "and then it dies out ringing almost always 44 or 46 times". And I time these to last almost a minute.

"But any chump could do that. On the seven o'clock bell, I use the old English stroke that has been used here since the college was founded. It took me three months of practice with the bell padded with rags to learn that stroke. First I ring it a few times to get it swinging. Then when it reaches the point where it is almost upside down but doesn't quite go over, I hold it there for ten seconds. I let it ring three times, and then hold on the other side for ten seconds, keeping this up for five minutes. I do all this by giving the rope exactly the right pull. For Sunday chapel, I wait ten seconds between each stroke."

No less than eight heavy old-fashioned padlocks, four of them on one door with heavy sheet iron plates on either side formerly protected the passage up the stairs to the bell. The time-honored custom of stealing the tongue of the bell or otherwise disabling it necessitated these heavy fortifications to guard it from assault. All of these locks remain as witnesses of the old times, but they are no longer used. As Mr. Conant said: "Those days are pretty nearly faded out; there's only one door used now with a modern Yale lock on it. You see, in the old days when there was compulsory chapel, if the bell didn't ring the boys didn't have to get up. And so, out of deviltry, when they were coming home late at night, they would try to fix the bell so that they could sleep in the morning. But there is no point to it now."

Mr. Conant remembers only one modern repetition of these incidents. That came as a result of a remark last year by President Lowell in a speech at one of the exercises of the Senior class. "He said something about the boys nowadays not having the pep they used to have because they never did anything to the bell. That night some of them smashed down the door and stole the tongue just to show him he was wrong, I suppose.

"But I fooled 'em! They didn't know I had a substitute tongue I rang the 7 o'clock bell with a hammer, and then put the new tongue in!"

It was Mr. Conant's predecessor, old Jones the Bell-ringer, as he was called, who bore the brunt of the attacks in the old days. For 44 years he protected the bell and its clapper from an infinite variety of plots by undergraduates seeking a few extra hours of sleep in the morning. Mr. Conant described a few of the methods used, "Besides stealing the clapper, the boys used to tie up the bell with a rope. And in the wintertime they turned it upside down, filled it with water, and let it freeze." In order to avoid the padlocks, the usual method of access was to stand on the roof of Hollis, rope the Harvard chimney and come over on that. But one night, coming up the stairs, the "thieves" avoided the sheet-iron door by going around it. As old Jones used to say. "The boys tore out the plaster and went through the wall on me."

Ringing the bell is an exact science. "I ring it on the hour and the minute, and as near as possible on the second," said Mr. Conant, "I've been on the job going on thirteen years, never missed a day, and never had a complaint on the bell being wrong. Two-thirds of the students and professors come to me for the right time, and most of the clocks in the square are set by the bell."

"There is one thing I wish the CRIMSON would advocate," he concluded. "That is an 8 o'clock bell instead of a 7. In these modern times, 7 o'clock is a little too early for the boys to get up, and entirely too early for the bell-ringer."