Harvard University - Red Book Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

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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-

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THE FLOWER RUSH AROUND THE CLASS TREE

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sation, it was agreed that the Brigade Band, which used to play on those occasions in the morning, 'should be engaged to play all through the day in the college Yard, by way of giving a certain festive aspect to the day, not due to the presence of liquor. It was also agreed that the Seniors should not supply the punch which had been considered a necessity imposed upon them by the old college customs, and on this agreement the President cordially offered that the whole expense of the band, which would otherwise have fallen upon the class, should be met by the college govern- 1nent.' . . . There was a large attendance of the belles of Boston, as there always was, and as soon as the exercises in the chapel were over, they repaired to the different rooms which were open for 'spreads' But then it was that the young gentlemen urged the ladiesqnot to leave after these refreshments, but to remain through the afternoon and be present, with their smiles and applause, when the Seniors should make the final dance around the Tree. This Tree had al- ways been marked as the Tree around which the class was to form, hand in hand, and at which they bade the college good-bye. It was the Class Tree of today, and was then known, I think, as the Rebellion Tree. A The girls stayed as they were asked to stay, and the band was stationed in the entry of Stoughton, which is next to Holworthy. with those windows open. I think there was no platform in front, but the music men crowded in as they could, and played as they were bidden from time to time. But of course with the forty or fifty young men of dancing age, and with as many belles of the choicest of Boston and Cambridge, it would have been absurd not to use the advantages which they had. Immediately dancing was improvised on the grass in front of Stoughton and Holworthy. All this was so entirely successful that, with the next year. . . . we had fiddlers and other such people to play for the girls. Our invitations notified our friends that dancing would be in order. and the dancing began, as I remember, the moment the exercises in the chapel were overf, In the same article, Edward Everett Hale makes the rather amusing and interesting statement that there was a nice old lady, whose name I have forgotten, who lived down on the Brighton road, who had a lot of very sleazy black silk gowns, which we used to hire for a dollar a day for use on such occasions as these. In 1836, at the two hundredth anniversary of the founding of Harvard College, an ode by Rev. Samuel Gilman of the class of 1811 was sung. This ode was Fair Harvard, and this cele- bration was the first public occasion at which Fair Harvard was sung. For some half dozen years before this song was first sung at Harvard, singing had been a feature of the Class Day exercises. VVithin a decade Fair Harvard had taken' the place it so well deserved as the regular Class Day Song. Gail Hamilton, in describing Class Day in 1863, said that the Oration and Poem form the first public features of Class Day. After the public exercises came the spreads Each member of the Senior class prepares a banquet,-sometimes separately, and sometimes in clubs, at an expense varying from fifty to live hun- dred dollars .... When the feasting was over, the most picturesque part of the day began. The college green put off suddenly its antique gravity, and became Embrouded . . . as it were a mede Alle ful of fresshe Houres, white and rede,- 'Houres' which to their gay hues and graceful outlines added the rare charm of fluttering in perpetual motion. Everything was fresh, spotless, and in tune. It scarcely needed music to resolve all the incessant waver and shimmer into a dance: out the music came, and, like sand grains under the magnet, the beautiful atoms swept into stately shapes and tremulous measured activity,-M 'A line, sweet earthquake gently moved ily the soft wind of whispering silks' .