Gaudy Class Day Rolls On ...

Of all the ceremonies during Graduation Week that are encrusted with accumulated traditions, Class Day is without a doubt the least solemn and forbidding. Class Day is the seniors' own personal farewell to the College; historically, it has been the one activity in the last week where the tune hasn't been called by a conservative Administration. Consequently, Class Day has usually had a quality of strenuous abandon, not to mention drunkenness and obscenity, and more than once, shocked officials have been forced to clamp down the lid in order to preserve the good name of the College.

Since the Twenties, many of the more extravagant features of Class Day have been sternly laid away by the authorities. The confetti battles in the Stadium and the infamous dirty joke contests at the Tree have both vanished, as did the 19th century spiked punch tradition. During the war, Class Day itself was submerged. But it has since risen with surprising vigor, and some of its ancient and less decorous traditions may even be revived.

The Class of 1949 has already announced that after the daylight ceremonies at which the Class Poet, Oratory, Ivy Orator, Odist, and Chorister offer their talents, a "Class Night" in Memorial Hall will be staged. This activity will be "something like a Freshman smoker," Class officials say, with free beer and entertainment by the Class. But any informal gathering of seniors on Class Day, especially with the accompaniment of a beverage, will undoubtedly have more of a kinship to was sails of the past than to a Freshman smoker. It remains to be seen, of course, whether or not this projected "Class Night" will revive all of the ancient Class Day rougeries. Yet there has always been an indefinable carnival atmosphere around Class Day which leads to the suspicion that whatever. "Class Night" turns out to be, it won't be sedate.

Like many a Harvard tradition, Class Day's origin cannot be specifically dated, and its various features grew into fashion bit by bit over a considerable period of time. "We suspect that the origin of the literary exercises on Class Day," James Russell Lowell wrote in 1874, "may be traced by no doubtful inference to an attempt of the Overseers, beginning in 1754 and renewed at intervals for some ten years, to improve the elocution of the students by requiring the public recitation of dialogues translated out of Latin into English." Lowell was, however, evidently unfamiliar with the diary of President Wadsworth which indicates that some sort of ceremony existed at least as far back of 1725.

Wadsworth, who had been out of town for some years before his inauguration in 1725, remarked the valedictory exercises with interest. "I was Informed also that ye President & Fellows should sit with their Hats on when Valedictories are pronounced," he wrote. Early in the senior year, apparently, the Class got together to pick someone to deliver the valedictory. By 1750, there had been added more class officers, a dinner, and a sermon, as well as the Latin oration. In 1743, at an election meeting, several seniors were "found guilty of drinking prohibited Liquors," and were fined.

This association of strong drink with Class Day is a significant historical strand. In 1693, probably before the advent of the valedictory, the authorities decided to ban the intoxicating plum cake which graduating seniors had been in the habit of giving their friends. During the 18th century, records of Class Day alcoholism are sparse, but early in the 1800s, the tradition of spiked punch took firm root. Abuses of this custom, however, led to a riot in 1838, and in 1852, the punch was declared illegal. During a controversy over Class Day 35 years later, a correspondent to the CRIMSON recalled "the good old days, when ... a cask containing a quantity of good cheer from a neighboring distillery was set up in the middle of the Yard, where the weary and footsore might refresh body and soul."

Liquor also was used to lubricate the famous Tree Exercises on occasion. This tree stood between Harvard Hall, Hollis, and Holden Chapel; around 1815, seniors used to gather around it to sing and give cheers for such individuals as the president or a favorite janitor at the direction of the marshal. Later on, all classes joined hands and whirled in dizzy circles around the tree, "till all the college is swaying in the unwieldy ring," as Lowell reported it. A wreath of flowers was hung from one branch, and there were horse battles among the crowd to reach the wreath and tear out a handful of became more savage. Undergraduate organizations sent picked goon squads to crab the flowers, and the Tree Exercise "uniform" changed to old clothes and football outfits.

A naval, written anonymously in 1876 and titled "Student Life at Harvard," described the aspect of these gladiators flowers. As time passed, these contents "The Class, before so gentlemanly in appearance, stood transformed into a rabble of rowdyish and seedy-looking characters." Lowell agreed with this descriptive, remarking that "the Senior class are distinguished by the various shapes of eccentric rim displayed in their hats."

The violence of the scramble for the flowers came under severe attack late in the century, and was finally abolished in 1899. The Tree Exercises remained in watered down form until late in the 1920s. For a time, the tree was the scene of unofficial ceremonies built around a dirty story contest; women were strictly barred, but many of them used to sneak late the lower floors of Yard buildings and listen in through half-closed windows. This too was finally forbidden.

Another tradition, although less spectacular, has also fallen out of use. The Ivy Oration, beginning in 1865, was performed over a box full of class mementos which was buried solemnly against the west wall of old Gore Hall (where Widener now stands): Ivy was ceremoniously planted over the box, but when all the plants died in 1876, this custom came to an end. The Ivy Orator, of course, has survived, but the Oration that began as a sober dedication later changed to a humorous speech. Two of the more famous Orators have been George Lyman Kittredge '82 and Robert Benchley '12.

Two other Class Day mainstays appeared a few years after 1780, the date Lowell mentioned as the first organization of "a literary festival." A list of Orators began in 1776, and "a poem seems to have been added ten years later," Lowell noted. This expansion of the "literary festival" (it was not called "Class Day" until (1850) was made easier by the opening of the Charles River Bridge, which allowed Bostonians to whip over the Cambridge in larger numbers than before, giving a less formal and at the same time more eventful spirit to the activities.

Ralph Waldo Emerson was Class Poet in 1821, and, according to a contemporary report, his efforts were considerably "above expectation." The Chorister appeared unofficially around 1825, to lead the Class in singing the official Ode, and other innovations, some of which stuck and some of which didn't crept in during the later stages of the century.

In 1877, the seniors split dangerously over the question of Class Day. One faction wanted the old liberal tradition continued, and the other fought for a more sober and decorous ceremony. Finally the Corporation had to intervene so that a Class Day could be held at all. One result of this dispute was the temporary replacement of the Tree Exercises with the Harvard-Yale baseball game. The game, which is now apparently a permanent fixture, was seen glumly as a poor substitute for the more exciting custom. In 1882, when the baseball contest was again proposed, it was decried on the rather illogical ground that rain had spoiled the first Class Day game.

One change in Class Day procedure that continued was reported in the MAGENTA in 1873. "A noticeable feature at the Chapel was the substitution of stalwart Junior ushers for the armed policemen who used to guard the entrance to the parish church in Class Day mornings. The most belligerent freshman could find no excuse for a rush and everything is quiet and orderly." But there was a general flagging of spirits that year, for the reporter continued sadly to note that "it is evident that the interest in Class Day is slowly dying out, and that either something must be done to renew it or we shall seen see the annual festival collapse altogether."

But Class Day managed to survive the low ebb of 1873, and burst out sporadically through the years to startle more than once the good grey Commencement atmosphere. For a white, during the Twenties, confetti-throwing was sanctioned, but this vague reminder of former clashes at the Tree passed away in the paper shortage of the late war.

Another incident demonstrating the ir-8During the regime of PRESIDENT LOWELL, confetti battles in the Stadium on Class Day were officially approved.