Williams College - Gulielmensian Yearbook (Williamstown, MA)

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IO WILLIAMS COLLEGE CLASS BOOK duced the freshman to the study of the languages-English, Latin, Greek and French, although the latter was omitted for some time after 1799. This course of study was continued for the four years, and sophomore year the student indulged in geography, algebra, mensurations, arithmetic, conic sections and geometry. The following year he commenced the study of rhetoric and logic, as an introduction to the work of senior year-history, national law, ethics, civil polity, theology and metaphysics. In 1806 the grammar school was discontinued and there are many records of graduates of this institution refusing to enter the college and transferring to some sounder school of learning. One hundred years before the class of nineteen nine were seniors 117 students were registered at Williams college. There were seventeen freshmen, thirty-one sophomores, forty juniors and twenty-nine seniors. Eight states of the Union were 'repre- sented. The catalogue published in November, 1809, gives the list of the teaching force, consisting of the president, vice presi- dent and three tutors. On September 6, 1809, the Commence- ment procession marched through the archway in the middle of West college and proceeded up to the meetinghouse, standing in the Field Memorial park and constructed at the close of the last century as a result of the threat of the trustees of the college to hold the exercises in Pittsfield, if no suitable edifice were built in the town. There were thirteen orations, three dialogues and two disputations to be listened to. The people fiocked in from the surrounding villages for the events ofthe day. Venders of gingerbread were present with booths and we read that cider was not wanting, and it was not difficult to procure a stronger drink, so as the day wore on there was often a ludicrous mixture of the literary and what had little affiliation with it, The Valedictorian of the college, directly before appearing on the platform, had been dipped into the Green river by several of his classmates in an attempt to restore l1im to a presentable condition. In the year 1809, West and East were the only college build- ings. West, built in 1790, contained the library, studies, and on the south side of the second and third stories the chapel. A bell in the belfry was tolled for all meetings and the bclfryman, usually a student, dared leave his room at the foot of the tower

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fr rr' X' 4 avr rgrwlf SEAL OF THE FREE SCHOOL. Hare impressed from the orig- inal dne cast in I790. 4.1 , Q, 0 ,If W-Fl ,Q Q16 si I pf . 'f'f mXf44 ' in I f I ,V ,X ig. A ,f 1, V X XX WILLIAMS COLLEGE ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO RESIDENT FITCH of Williams college, about one hun- dred years ago this Commencement, Wrote to a friend a letter which shows how little the ideals of this institution have changed to this date. It reads in part, Our ambition is to make good scholars rather than add to our number, and in this we mean not to be outdone by any college in New England. A glance at the entrance requirements and at the courses offered by the college in view of this is most interesting. In a certain sense VVilliams has been the originator of the present elective system. The student seeking admission in the very earliest days of the college had an option. The rule read, Each student who applies for admission must be able to accurately construe, read and parse to the satisfaction of the president and tutors, Virgil's 7Eneid, Tully's Orations, and the Evangelists in Greekg or, if he prefers to become acquainted with French, he must be able to read and pronounce with a tolerable degree of accuracy and fluency I-Iudson's French Scholar's Guide, Telemachus, or some other approved French author. The curriculum, which aimed to see Massachusetts become the Athens of America, intro-

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WILLIAMS COLLEGE CLASS BOOK I1 only for recitations, meals and prayers, for fear of being kid- napped and thus causing a holiday. East, built in 1796, burned down in 1841 and replaced by the present building of one less floor, was not very much occupied at this time, containing but two recitation rooms in use. Christmas lake still existed on the old campus and close by this was the college spring, the source of all the water supply. The students from West, with their buckets in their hands, went through the meadows to fetch their daily water. The path they followed is now called Spring street. VVilliamstown was called NVest Hoosuch and in the histories of these times we often read of Graylock and the Taghonic moun- tains. No stage coach ever entered the town and the only quasi- public means of communication with the outside world were the three solitary messengers who rode into town about once a week on horseback, over the mountains from Troy, Pittsfield and Springfield. During the senior year of the class of eighteen nine three interesting actions were taken by the trustees. The faculty were authorized to give the students leave of absence from their rooms between 9 and IO P. M.: the faculty members were paid H3180 for supplying the pulpit thirty-six Sabbathsf and a committee was appointed to prevent the students' rooms from smoking. It is probable that the class of eighteen nine inaugurated Chip Day. The pL'll'pOSC of this holiday was to clean up the campus, but the holiday was later abolished when the students introduced hired labor for that purpose and used the holiday to leave town. In the spring and summer of 1808 the second student rebellion in the history of the college was promulgated. The sophomores, in an endeavor to prevent the reappointment of several of the instructors, petitioned the trustees for that purpose. Not more than a half a dozen upperclassmen were closely connected with this action. Upon the refusal of the trustees to take action, Professor Olds, of the department of Natural Philosophy and Mathematics. demanded a written apology from the students. President Fitch refused to sustain the professor, and in conse- quence found himself one morning to be the only member of the Williams faculty. A recess of four weeks was then found necessary to replenish the instructing force.