Harvard University - Red Book Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

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ITI-I the passing of college years has developed the time-honored custom of the Senior class taking some more or less formal leave of their friends, in- structors, and college surroundings. This custom has given rise at different colleges to distinctive fea- tures connected with the closing exercises. To every Princeton man the thoughts of Class Day ceremonies and festivities center in the old Cannon. Everyone who has attended the Class Day exer- cises at Leland Stanford, Jr., University, will think of Class Day with pleasant memories of the delightful Quadrangle Reception on the evening of Class Day. The link that binds us most closely to the Class Days of the past is the Class Day Tree. XrVith its massive branches towering ma- jestically above Holden Chapel, the Class Day Tree stands a silent witness to many a fierce conflict of the classes of the past. Genera- tion after generation have engaged in the Class Day festivities clustering about this Tree. The old Tree still stands behind Har- vard Hall, but except for the secluded half-hour or so spent around it by the Seniors, while making their farewell round of the Yard, the Class Day Tree has been shorn of the honor of being the center of the more spectacular features of Class Day, and the car- nival of today around the Statue has succeeded the flower rush Jn and charge of yesterday about the Tree. The beginnings of Class Day are shrouded in the mists of by- gone days. Here and there we find a scattered record of some History of Class Day simple farewell by the departing class to the college authorities. A round two centuries have come and gone, and the plain adieu of the closing seventeenth century has become the elaborate Class Day of nineteen hundred and three, opening with the Senior Spread the evening before Class Day, and closing with the dances in Me- morial Hall and the Gymnasium. The more solemn and formal ceremonies now occur on Com- mencement Day. Class Day has become essentially a day of social entertainment and enjoyment. Before the middle of the eighteenth century Class Day was unknown. Soon after this time, however, we find records of separate Class Day exercises being held. The beginnings of Class Day very naturally developed in connection with the established custom of Commencement Day. To an ar- ticle in the Harvard Book is added a foot-note of some inter- est: The social exigencies of the day are exemplified in an entry made by Tutor Flint in his diary on the eve of Commence- ment, 1724: 'Had of Mr. Morris 2 corkscrews at 4 d. a piece.' This, if it represent an average, was certainly a handsome tutorial provision. Mr. Morris, it should be remembered, beside teaching Hebrew in the College, kept a small shop fsuch as used to be called 'variety stores'j on what is now known as Winthrop Square. Commencement in those early days of Harvard is thus described by a witness in 1687: Mr. Mather, President, Pray'd forenoon and afternoon. Mr. Ratcliff sat in the pulpit by the Governour's direction. Mr. Mather crav'd a Blessing and return'd Thanks in the Hallf' The same writer made the following entryvin his diary for july 2, 1690: Came to Cambridge by Water in the Barge, wherein the Governour Iliradstreetl, Major Generall fWinthrop1, Capt. Blackwell, Mr. Addington, Allen, Willard and others: Had

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the Tide homeward. Thirty Commencers besides Mr. lNathanie1j Rogers, Sir lSamuel1 Mather, and Mr. Uohnl Emmerson. Sir Mather in England yet had a Degree conferred on him. Mr. Rog- ers and Emerson should have Commenc'd last year, but were hin- dered by Sickness. Within a few years after this we find records of the feeble be- ginnings of Class Day. But except for the members of the class, Class Day seems for many years to have attracted almost no atten- tion. Iohn Rowe, a Boston merchant of some prominence, gives us in his diary numerous glimpses of Commencement and of dinners and dances given about the time of that occasion between the years I765 and 1774, but Class Day as such does not seem to have been mentioned by him. ' James Russell Lowell said in an article in the Harvard Book: We suspect that the origin of the literary exercises on Class Day may be traced by no doubtful inference to an attempt of the Over- seers, 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. Though this effort seems to have failed of its immediate purpose, it is very likely to have given a hint to the undergraduates and roused among them an ambition for volunteer displays of oratory. How soon it may have occurred to them that they might have a literary festival of their own it is impossible to say. 'Ilhe earliest authentic trace we are able to find of any organization of the Senior class which may seem to have had such an end in view occurs in 1760. The list of annual orators begins in 1776, and a poem seems to have been added ten years later. The latter date is noteworthy as coincident with the opening of Charles River Bridge, which made easier the access from Boston to Cambridge, thus rendering more probable the enlivening presence of a non-scholastic audience. Before this the ceremonies seem to have been restricted to an oration in Latin, sandwiched between two prayers by the President, like a criminal between two peace-ofhcers, and can scarcely have betrayed the most thoughtless to any excess of hilarity .... The Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings contain some interesting extracts from the diary of john Rowe: July 17, 1765. Commencement Day. Went to Cambridge, Mrs. Rowe, Polly Hooper, and Suckyg dined at Edward Wins- low's room, a very large companyg went to Mr. Hooper's room, also to Col. Thy1or's. The following day he took dinner at Mr. I-Iooper's, and in the evening attended a dance at the Town House given by Nathaniel Sparhawk, of the class of 1765, and Mr. Rowe adds that he Hdfiiciated as master of the ceremony. Similar en- tries were made in 1766. Under date of July 20, 1768, Mr. Rowe wrote: I went to Cambridge, stopped at Mr. Inman's, dined with a very large company at Jos. Henshaw's, paid a visit to Tutor Han- cock's, met the Rev. Mr. Barnard of Marblehead, afterwards paid a visit to Mrs. Green's, where were a very large company, too many to enumerate. july '17, 1771, has this entry: I went to Cam- bridge and dined with Mr. Inman, Polly jones and Sally Inman, after dinner I went to Col. Murray's room in the New Colledge, ' where there was a large company, Governour, Councill, and too many to enumerate. On july 15, 1772, Mr. Rowe gives an ac- count of a dinner he attended at Samuel Murray's room, at which Colonel Murray, Colonel Saltonstall, Judge Sewall, Colonel Oliver, Samuel Quincy, and other distinguished guests were present. The following day, July 16, Mr. Rowe writes: I went early to Mr. Inman's, who made the genteelest entertainment I ever saw on account of his son George taking his degree yesterday. He had three hundred forty-seven gentlemen and ladies dined, two hundred and ten at one table, amongst the company the Governour and family, and all the remainder gentlemen and laidies of character and reputation: the whole was conducted with much ease and pleasure and all joyned in making each other happy, such an entertainment has not been made in New England before on any occasion. These annual festivities, when a very large com- 'Hollis Hall.