The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1886-11-14
The Time When Students
Dared Not Eat Plain Cake.
1T WAS ABOUT $50 YEARS AGO.
John Harvard and the Early College
BuiIdings-The Usages and sOcie-
ties OF that Age.

ing narrative of considerable interest
Harvard College. around the name o
which hangs many pleasant reminis
cences, has a history distinctly its own
The history is the history of education
wealth. commercial enterprise, htera'
ture, the science and the arts through
out this country. 1t was in 1886, just
sixteen years after the landing Of the
colonists at Plymouth, that the General
Court of the Colony Of Massachusetts,
Bay voted as follows; The Court
agrees to give Four Hundred Pounds
towards School or College
whereof Two Hundred Pounds shall
be paid the next year and Zoo
when the work is finished, and the next
court to appoint where and what build
Ing" This took place IN the month OF
September. In the following year the
general court appointed from among
the prominent men of the colony
twelve, who were to take order for e
college at Newtown." The name
: Newton" was afterwards changed TO
Cambridge, in recognition of the English
University.
John Harvard was a comparatively
young man. Born in England in l6o5,
educated st Cambridge, q non-eonform-
ing clergyman, he emigrated to Mas
sachusetts in 1887 and there performed
bis ministerial duties. Dying at
CharlestoTH in 1888, having only been in
the colony about q year, he beQueathed
half his property and his entire library
to the college. The library was q large
one for those times, consisting OF some
800 volumes, and the whole bequest was
in value more than double the entire
sum voted by the court, and il was de-
cided to build the college at once and
name il Harvard, in honor of its bene-
factor. The same year the first class
was organized.
The college building in 1913 was very
fair and comedy within and without,
having in il q spacious hail, where they
daily met at commons, lectures, exer-
cises, and . large library with some
books TO it, the gift Of divers of our
friends; and by the side of the college
Q fair grammar school for the training
up of young scholars that
still as they are judged ripe they may
be received into the college" The COL
lege proper was under the immediate
charge of the president, Henry Dunster.
The life Of the student was not always
q happy one, and numerous restraints
were placed on their actions, that the
carnal flesh might be mortified. A
freshman was expected TO remove his
hat when in the presence of q scholar
from the higher classes, besides running
errands for him. Pupils were sometimes
whipped before the school, and the use
of tobacco was forbidden except by
permission from the President after
81 L. -. -, a
a physician had given good reasons for
its use by the student Fines were
levied for numerous minor offenses as
well as many grave ones, and as
money was scarce the college bills
were often paid by butter, cheese,
fruit, vegetables, grain, oxen, cows and
shoes. There were no professors, the
President being the principal teacher,
but in 1913 Bulkley and Downing,
graduates of the year before. were ap-
pointed as assistants to the President
at the muniicent salary of "a sterling
a year each for their palms."
1t is related that when Samuel Ma
ther, of the class of 1913, successor TO
Bulkley and Downing. delivered his
last philosophy lecture the students
heard him with tears, and when he
went away they put on mourning.
Previous to 1856 the Presidents had
all been Of foreign birth. but in that
year Increase Nather, who graduated
in 1856, became acting President. He
neglected the college and il in conse-
quence suffered. One OF his acts, which
is unique in the history of college Presi-
dents, was the burning In the college
yard of q book which severely criticised
his action in prosecuting some poor
women Of Salem for being witches. As
the college grew apsce under the judici-
GUS care of such men as Leverett, Holy
oke and Wadsworth, the unnecessarily
strict discipline was relaxed and many
OF the fines were abated in l76l. In 1722
we 6Rd q humorous rule whereby
students at commencement were for
hidden to use PLAIN cake. The greatest
disaster which overlook the college was
the IRE which occurred in JsnuRy,
lT6i, and destroyed the library.
During the war with the mother
country the students were intensely
patriotic. The senators voted TO appear
at commencement dressed only in
homemade mater al. Later on money
was raised BY lotteries.
College societies. which now play 10
prominent part in the history Of every
college, became very numerous at Har-
ward before the close of the eighteenth
CchtdIN. AhOuk Inem t01 speaking
Club (now the Institute OF mo- and the
Phi Beta Kappa are spoken Of as the
chief literary societies, the Psrcsllian
as the social, the Adelphi as the rsliki-
Gus and the Hasty Pudding, a mixture
of al three.
OF the college buildings now standing.
Massachusetts, Hall. gift from the
province after which il was named, is
the Oldest, for old Stoughton Hall was
taken down and rebuilt, and Harvard
was destroyed by FIRE. 1t was pat up
as building for the students, where
they roomed and studied. Lstterly.
however, the interi.r arrangements |
have been changed, and the old hall is ]
now used as reading room and exam
inatiOn hall.
Holden Chapel was erected in I74I
through the iberality of Nine. Holden |
aud her daughters, who contributed |
200 for that purpose. Up to that time |
the college lad no chapel, and prayers |
were held in the Commons Hall or the |
Library. It is a plain substantial !
building of brick, but dignifed in its 1
D.. Samuel Colmsn, who |