Harvard University - Red Book Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

Page 13 text:

,fonfgg f ' I . f . ll I - 1 J' 4. hw' j,,,.i.'.., . I . - I- 'f,5'rIf'sv5'1'fl1- . . fvffj,l'f-',a:ul.KQ., 4 :Af - J ' fJ'?ll':iiWw5f222ae'?:affnwwmz 4- .fvef 1 4' V '- Z.-4--, .,-2 ife':,1uz-12-'54-'15-lmfz.-.-. ' -' jjj f 41 .5559-1 'K-tgj,g,. ,ff 'fW Maki-JawQ':v?1s314ffff'-tw'' . .. :Z,'rTl:f. .ff .. f ,'ffm-f.sg'Faf+14f+4.-atwr it mf-1f.-1.1 . K 41 any . 4 .hat .f , ,, X. . , ., .i .W 'liiljgfij,4?3g,f5ffefgyffygaiwl -. uf ga WM J, 52.55, i I7 H14 fu' f . P ...l ,H V 4. ,, ll F: -V IKI4 up zjvijyipgy '11 f - , ' .,.-.4fZ 4:, if'fff2i -. A fit 44 s xg,-f,st,..t,.,.,,. . '-r. -t f Y' XXP' X '67 OZ -4 6 Not all undergraduate activity in that era was as disorderly as outright insurrection. Extra-curricular organizations flourished in the nineteenth century, especially during the two Kirkland decades. There were several associations still lingering from the late seventeen hundreds: the lnstitute of 1770 remained an independent organization, both social an'd literaryg the Phi Beta Kappa which had been started as a secret society in 1779 discarded its mysticism in 1831 and revealed that Philosophy, the guide of life was the meaning of its secret Greek lettersg the Porcellian or Pig Club of 1791 merged with an outfit called Knights of the Square Table in 1831 to prolong its existence as a social fraternity, and the Hasty Pudding Club of 1795 still met weekly, still served pots of its namesake pudding, and in 1844, performed its first burlesque. Other organizations established themselves as the century progressed. The history of Harvard journal- ism begins with the 1810 publication of the Harvard Lyceum, an ambitious little literary journal which printed entries in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and English. The periodical's editors included Edward Everett and Samuel Gilman, the author of 'lFair Harvard, and its subject matter ranged from discourses on The Prob- ability of the Return of the Dark Ages to poetry and moralizing fiction. But the Lyceum lasted only through eighteen issues and ceased publication with a warning- 'lThis is the first paper that ever was attempted by the students of Harvard. lf it is not the last, it shall

Page 12 text:

Webber provided the school with the Massacliusetts Hall sundial, and not much else. In 1807, bad food in the College dining hall again incited rioting, now the Rotten Cabbage Rebellion. Large numbers of stu- dents- assembled under a tree across from the south entry of Hollis Hall, condemned the food, the faculty, the College, and everything else in sight until several leaders of the riots were dismissed and order restored. Their protests were not very successful but the tree became known as Rebellion Elm, providing a ready site for future riots and general revelry. The Rev. John Thornton Kirkland became Har- vard's fourteenth President on the death of Webber in 1810. The appointment of Kirkland, a Unitarian and pastor of Boston's then new, and highly liberal, South Church, brought the final alienation of the old Calvinist factions. They abandoned the College to Unitarian domination and once more resolved to build a college which would serve their principles. They soon founded Amherst College. Kirkland proved to be one of the most successful and most popular of all Harvard's Presidents. Dur- ing the eighteen years of his administration, the school grew from a college to a university. The Medical School developed to maturity, the Law and Divinity Schools were founded, and Harvard expanded rapidly. Holworthy Hall was built in 1812 with proceeds from a state lotteryg Charles Bulfinch, a graduate of 1781 and the greatest American architect of the time, de- signed University Hall, which became the academic center in 1815. The faculty was enlarged, the cur- riculum broadened, and the endowment greatly in- creased. Student life, in those times, was gradually becoming more comfortable and more enjoyable. The strictest rules were relaxed and free will given a freer hand. If the food was no better at least now there was more of it. Kirkland closed down the old f'Buttery -a large shed adjacent to Harvard Hall Where students had come to collect milk, bread and butter for break- fast and supper-and replaced it with three meals a day in the College dining hall. Although the hazing of freshmen continued, they were no longer required to run errands for tutors and upperclassmen as they had for a long, long time. But still there was unrest in the undergraduate body. ln 18191, a crockery and bread fight started in the din- ing rooms in University Hall and turned into another rebellion when several of the participants were sus- pended. Sophomores and freshmen, including a young Ralph Waldo Emerson, met under Rebellion Elmi' and voted to Withdraw in a body if their classmates were not reinstated, The President refused their de- mands and thestudents resigned. Two weeks later they returned and the uprising ended. In April of 1823, another great revolt ensued, be- ginning under 'i'Rebellion Elm and spreading through- out the Yard. Seniors threw cannonballs from the upper windows of Yard halls, buckets of ink were splashed about the buildings, explosions and bonfires Were started, and thirty-seven of a class of seventy students were dismissed. Rev. Edward Holyoke J. T. Kirkland

Page 14 text:

Abbott Lawrence Lowell not be for want of our admonition. The legacy which we leave to our collegiate posterity, is our advice that they enjoy all those exquisite pleasures, which literary seclusion affords, but that they do not strive to com- municate them to others. Still, another publication-the thirty-two page Har- fuard Register-appeared in 1827 only to expire in less than a year. The Collegian, with Oliver Wendell Holmes as a contributor, published six numbers in 1830 and quickly disappeared. James Russell Lowell and several classmates then produced Harfoardiana Which managed to survive for three years. The flar- fvard Magazinie came out in 1854 and, surprisingly enough, continued publication for almost a decade. The Collegian re-organized a short while later but was suppressed by the faculty after three issues, it changed its name to the Advocate in May of 1866 and survived as a fortnightly. The Magenta, which. later became the Crimson, organized in 1873. lts first competitor, The Echo, appeared in 1879, and its second, the Daily Herald, was issued three years later. The Echo finally perished and the Herald merged with the Crimson leaving Har- vard with only one newspaper until 1895 when a short- lived News entered the market for a year. The Crimson then had to depend on the Lampoon, which had arrived in 1876, for its only source of rivalry until 1924 when John Monro started the Journal, a better newspaper than the Crimson but destined to last only through its first year. The Lampoon's sole accomplishment was the fathering of Life magazine. The most imaginative organization founded in the nineteenth century was the notorious Med. Fac., a society created in 1819 as a parody on the Medical School Faculty. Its members held bogus professor- 1 Charles William Eliot ships with titles in a doggerel they developed, later to be called Pig Latin. They issued parodies of the College catalogs and frequently conferred hon- orary degrees, once to Czar Alexander of Russia Who, thinking the degree legitimate, sent the Med. Fac. a valuable set of surgical instruments as an ex- pression of appreciation. The organization was even- tually banned by the faculty but maintained itself as a secret society, admission being based on the execution of some prank which, if discovered, was punishable by expulsion from the College. The Med. Fac. was last heard from in 1905 when an applicant for member- ship was caught stealing the bust of Phillips Brooks from Phillips Brooks House. J Josiah Quincy, Boston's reform-minded mayor, ac- cepted the Presidency in 1829, after the retirement of Kirkland. He soon became Widely disliked among the students and Within a few years the ground around Rebellion Elm was once again crowded with under- graduates. The violent uprisings of 1834 began over a dispute between a freshman and a tutor, ended in court proceedings and the dismissal of virtually the whole sophomore class. Dane Hall, the first Law School building, and Gore Hall into which the College's forty thousand volume library was moved, were completed by Quincy and the Bi-Centennial celebrations were held in the middle of his term. His was a period of considerable expan- sion. There followed after Quincy a gaggle of five minor Presidents-Edward Everett, Jared Sparks, the Rev. James Vllalker, Cornelius Conway Felton, and the Rev. Thomas Hill. ln 1849, Professor John Webster murdered and dissected Dr. George Parkman in a Medical School Laboratory, generating Harvard's most embarrassing