Harvard University - Red Book Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

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THE FLOWER RUSH AROUND THE CLASS TREE

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pany, too many to enumerate dined at Edward W inslow's room, or at Samuel Murray's room, and staid till six, are nothing else than the early stages of the Class Day spread, Down to the end of the eighteenth century, says James Russell Lowell, the official language of the college continued to be that of this Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum, and the cases were excep- tional and tentative where the Class Day orator descended to the domestic level and less difficult air of the vernacular. Latin verse was more arduous, and the poet seems from the first to have in- dulged in the less constraining jail-limits of his mother-tongue. Towards the close of the last century, ' and in the earlier years of this, the orator seems gradually to have given way at shorter inter- vals either before the hardships of Latin prose composition or the not unnatural ambition of making himself intelligible to his audi- ence. for in 1802 the Faculty, alarmed at the increasing tendency to molest the ancient solitary reign of classical precedent, passed the following vote :-- 'Whereas an innovation has sometimes of late years taken place in the conduct of the ceremony in the chapel on the day when the Seniors retire from College, after finishing their literary course, viz., the introduction of an English Exercise, whichgives it more the appearance of a public Exhibition designed to display the tal- ents of the Performers and entertain a mixed audience, than of a merely valedictory address of the Class to the Government, and taking leave of the Society and of one another, in which Adieu, Gentlemen and Ladies from ab-road are not particularly interested, And whereas the propriety of having but one Person to be the Organ of the class at the time of their taking leave of the College on this occasion must be obvious and as at the same time it is more Academical that the valedictory performance be in Latin than in English, as is thc practice in Universities of the most established reputation abroad, and was forn1erly our own: Voted, That the particular kind of Exercise in the Senior Class at the time of their taking leave of the College, sanctioned by the 'This was written in the nineteenth century. usage of a Century and a half, be alone adhered to, and conse- quently that in future no performance but a Valedictory Oration in the Latin Language, except music adapted to the occasion,'be permitted in the Chapel on the day when the Seniors retire from the S.ociety.' - ' To this vote of the Faculty is appended this interesting note by a recent writer: This vote probably explains the fact that there is a gap in the list of orators and poets for the six years following 1802. The object of the Faculty clearly was to check the growing publicity of the day. There is a strange blunder in the 'usage of a century and an half.' There is no allusion to Class Day, so far as we have been able to discover, in the diaries of Presidents Leverett and Wadsworth, Tutor Flint, or judge Sewall .... But Class Day, says Mr. Lowell, though thus tolerated rath- er than legitimized, and no doubt grateful enough virginibus puerisque, was not for many years yet allowed to Haunt it under the very nose of Commencement. , Henry Adams cites an interesting entry in the diary of a Har- vard man, which gives us the impression made by Class Day on one member of the junior class. iujune 21, 1786. Class Day. This day the Seniors leave col- lege. There is no recitation in the morning, and prayers are de-- ferred till IO o'clock. The class then went down in procession two by two with the poet at their head, and escorted the President to the chapel. The President made a very long prayer, in which in ad- dition to what he commonly says, he prayed a great deal for-the Seniors. but I think he ought to get his occasional prayers by heart before he delivers them. He bungled always when he endeavored to go out of the beaten path, and he has no talent at extempore composition. James Russell Lowellagives this entry from a private diary to which helhad access: Emerson's poem was somewhat superior to the general expectation .... This class danced around the Rebellion Tree. This was Class Day in 1821, and is doubly

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interesting because Ralf VValdo Emerson was Poet and also be- cause here we find the beginnings of the Tree exercises of later days. Another entry in the same diary under date of 1824 is: Tuesday, I3 july. We part today. After commons, according to previous appointment we had a good prayer from Burnap in the Senior Hall. Un University. This was the usage before the building of Appleton Chapel.j VVe spent an hour or two after this in calling on each other and bidding good-bye to many who would not even meet us at Commencement. Ah half past ten the class went in procession to the chapel, and heard a very beautiful valedictory oration from Newell and poem from George Lunt. . . . Chapel was quite full. After we had ended, we called upon President Kirkland and received his farewell blessing in cake and wine. - So early certainly as I834,,, continues Mr. Lowell, 'fthe custom had begun of the Senior class treating all comers to iced punch during the afternoon of Class Day. This beverage was brought in bucketspfrom NVillard's Tavern Know the Horse Railway Sta- tionj and served out in the shade on the northern side of Harvard Hall. As the weather was generally of the hottest fthe dog-days having been just loosed from their kennelsj the frigus amabile of this gelid liquor naturally prevailed with the thoughtless over the unsophisticate lymph Cdulci digna meroj, which Howed from the College pumps, albeit famous for its purity. Alas, it was this very failure of foreign admixture that prevailed against it, and serious disbrders resulted! . . . In 1836ithe College janitor, in vain protesting, yet not without hilarious collusion on his own part, was borne inwavering triumph on a door,i the chance-selected symbol of his officef' The list of Class Day Officers for 1829 contains the name of Oliver Wendell Holmes as Poet. Edward Everett Hale was Poet of the class of '39, Edward Everett Hale in an article in the H award M on-thly says of Class Day that when he entered college in 1835, it was estab- lished as one of the fixed matters. The class paraded in the morn- ing, and its own chaplain ofiered prayer. It met at the college chapel, which was then in University Hall, and an oration and a poem were delivered. All this was in the presence of an assembly which filled the chapel, of the ladies and gentlemen who were friends of the graduates. There were then a few 'spreads,' though we did not give them that name, in the different rooms, and with this the invited guests disappeared, and the afternoon of Class Day was given up to revelry. ' This means that around the groups of trees which were still called 'the grove,' and stood very near where Appleton Chapel now stands, were placed pails full of punch of different brewings, -rum, brandy, and I suppose whiskey, though we heard less of whiskey in those days,-which were constantly supplied. Every loafer in and near Cambridge was permitted to come in and drink as much as he wanted. There was loud singing and dancing, and most or all of the Senior class were present. I think that they had their supper at some hotel not far away on the same night, but it was understood in general that they would be at 'the grove' through the hours of the afternoon. It is easy to imagine what a scene of beastly drunkenness followed. If the college men were not drunk the loafersfrom the neighborhood were .... All this ended by marching to the Class Tree of today, and dancing around it. There was punch there also. It would be fair to say that everybody disliked this, and so it happened that at the beginning of the week in which Class Day was to be celebrated in 1838, President Quincy sent for one or two of the leading men of the class of '38 to confer about it in a friendly way. One of the gentlemen sent for was my brother, Nathan Hale, so that I know of the arrangements from the beginning. The President said to them that he knew they disliked this revelry as much as he did, and that the faculty would be glad if the class could agree on any arrangements by which it could be broken up. They said to him that they would cordially join with the faculty in their wish: they would, in fact, take the lead in suppressing the intemperance of the afternoon. And, after a friendly conver-