Closing of Memorial Hall Marks End of Almost Three Centuries of Efforts to Maintain University Commons

The closing of the Memorial Halls dining-room marks the end of a long history of efforts to maintain a "University Commons".

When the University was started in 1636, the Pilgrim Fathers insisted that Harvard imitate the English universities in compelling students to eat at a common table. Accordingly Nathaniel Eaton, started the first dining-hall which established for Harvard, it has been said, a reputation for poor food that has clung to it for almost three centuries.

With the flight of Eaton to England, matters began to mend somewhat. The commons were moved to a newly constructed building, in which the elaborate system of English Commons was scrupulously carried out.

In spite of repeated fines for eating out of commons, a strong dislike to being herded together and forced to eat poor food, gradually drove the students to eating in public taverns. The attempts of the authorities to enforce the rules soon aroused the students to active revolts in which they met force with force. The simplest and most popular expression of disapproval of the food consisted in impromptu bombardments, when the offending meats, ples, and puddings were hurled about the room, followed, in the more acute manifestations, by the table ware and utensils.

At last in 1825 conditions had reached such a pitch that the Faculty, tired by a century of wrangling and disappointments, finally allowed students to board at private houses.

But permissions were granted so freely that by 1849 less than one-sixth of the College was in Commons. By this time the whole business had become a white elephant, until, under the inexpert hands of outside speculators, it proved a flat failure, and was abandoned.

However prices soon rose to such an extent that poorer students had to "board themselves". As one remarked, "I can get along quite well for nine dollars a term". In 1865 Thayer Commons were started in the terminal station of the "Harvard Branch Railway which had just been forced out of business." This venture was so successful that in 1874, at the suggestion of President Eliot, who had been making extensive investigations on the subject both here and abroad, the concern was reorganized, expanded, and placed in the have of Memorial Hall, where it has remained until this day.