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College Words and Customs.

WHEN we undertook this paper, we had intended to notice the new edition of College words and customs lately published by Mr. Hall. But the subjects thus suggested grew so much, as we proceeded upon their investigation, that we are reluctantly compelled to postpone all mention of this excellent book until a future number.

At the extremity of that leg of New England, which has been pronounced by competent authority to be ever ready to inflict a geographical kick upon invaders, reposes the queer village of Provincetown. The products are whale-captains, whortleberries, codfish and sand. This last commodity is so remarkably abundant that wheel-carriages, except the gig of a presiding elder, or the stray cart of an enterprising tinpeddler, are seen only through the spectacles of books. A little urchin who once came across one of these miraculous vehicles, hung on behind out of pure boyish instinct, and when the proprietor asked him the nature of his business in that particular locality, he replied with great naivete, that he had got aboard to see him steer without a rudder.

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Now College words and customs are so familiar to those who are continually practising the one and speaking the other, that we are apt to pass them by as needless themes for thought and record, and to forget entirely that outside barbarian world to whom our modes of life are as queer and wondrous as are the rudderless crafts above mentioned to the good folks of Provincetown.

Every old College is a microcosm. It has its own laws, language and institutions. If we look into the venerable cloisters of Oxford and Cambridge, we see these peculiarities in full activity. Their stately academic structures turn their backs upon the common world, and look in subjectively upon the enclosed quadrangles, across which gownsmen flit as distinct in appearance and idiosyncracy as the money changers of Lombard street. This is the development of centuries.

American College life is less peculiar and exclusive. It is based upon the old English system, but modified by our republican institutions. To the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, may be traced our laws and studies, and the custom of living in commons. Freshman servitude had its origin in the "fagging" of the English public schools. The bully club, football, burial of Euclid, pow-wow, biennial jubilee, statement of facts and multifarious secret societies, are native to the manor born.

At the present day, the differences between our Collegiate customs and those of the English Universities, are as striking as our national characteristics. We should open big eyes to see any favored body of men arrayed in distinctive costume-having the best things at dinner and obtaining their Bachelor's degree by a lower standard of examination than the rest of their Class. We should wonder even more to find the "Dons" mingling, primi inter pares, in games of cricket, in skating and racing-inviting undergraduates to convivial entertainments, drinking mulled port with them and playing whist for a shilling a point.

There is the same diversity in details. The English tutor combines the functions of private teacher, locating officer, guardian, and jolly companion. Their attendance on morning prayers is optional. Ours is not. Our sweeps are male; theirs female. There the student's grade is settled by examinations alone. Here it is commonly believed that something depends upon daily recitations. A Cantab, after being "plucked," may solace himself with the connubial endearments of a better half. A Yalensian, who should be found wedded to anything besides his books, would obtain the valedictory extraordinary. The English student must still dine in commons, and while within the College walls must appear in the square cap and long gown. Here the hungry academician may

patronize the "Shanghai," or the "Crocodiles," and be blameless, and, in point of apparel, may array himself in the waistcoat of Prince Vortigern's grandfather, or project his head through a hole in a blanket at his sovereign will.

But it is time to speak more particularly of Yalensian customs. And first, of three which have fallen into desuetude, viz, Commons, Freshman servitude, and Bullyism. The system of Commons began in 1718, when the first Collegiate building was erected in front of what is now South College, and the Trustees imitated the policy of Thescus, by collecting into one community the students who were scattered throughout Milford, Guilford, Saybrook, Wethersfield, and other adjoining villages.

In the old dining hall, everything was convenient. Until 1763, prayers were held in the same room. The books were kept up stairs. The kitchen was in such close proximity that the spatter of frying pork must have mingled quite unaesthetically with the responses of the liturgy. At this table Jonathan Edwards drank his beer, and Joel Barlow ate the original of his "hasty pudding." Here Timothy Dwight met with becoming dignity the advances of a portly Sophomore named David Humphreys. Here the elder Aaron Burr discussed Theology with his classmate Bellamy, and Noah Webster smilingly told his companions that in his class the "Brothers" had thirty-three men out of forty. Rare times they must have had at that old table.

After a period of sixty-four years arose a new dining hall, which still remains as a memorial of olden times. Where now, at noon, Professor Silliman manipulates and deflagrates, and makes the heart heavy with knotty problems and chlorine gas, the College butler, [in 1782, illustrated the doctrine of definite proportions to about two hundred and fifty students, who then partook of their initiatory dinner. It was of Lacedæmonian frugality as well as conventuality. The staple articles of diet were potatoes+HO, and beef well indurated with the chloride of sodium. It was to an extra-osseous pyramid of this corned-beef, that a hungry wit applied the classic apothegm, "Nil de mortuis nisi bonum.” Upon another occasion, a somewhat dissipated wit complained of the fare. The old woman who officiated as cook, told the President it was better than he desarved. "Yes," returned the conscience-smitten grumbler, "it is better than I deserve as a sinner, but not so good as I deserve at seven and sixpence a week." Those whose pocket-money held out, might procure "sizings" from the butler. This functionary held

* 1778.

quite a lucrative office, his profits amounting to about $1000 per annum. He sold about five hundred pies a week at sixpence apiece. The waiters, about sixteen in number, were appointed from the poorer students by the Faculty, as the monitors are now. They were generally supposed to look out for number one. The beverage for dinner was cider, which was contained in large pewter pitchers at each end of the table. Up to 1815, tumblers were an unknown luxury. Each man drank in turn from the pewter, the galvanic effect of which gave a perceptible addition to the flavor of the contents.

The luxurious breakfasts strongly reminded one of the brimstone-andtreacle mornings of Dotheboy's Hall. They consisted of an olla podrida, hashed up from the remnants of yesterday's dinner, fried into a consistency which baffled digestion and was a perpetual commentary on the interrogatory of Horace,

"Quid hoc veneni saevit in precordiis?"

To this the technical answer of our fathers was, "Slum." By way of variety, this compound was served both dry and wet. The morning drink was coffee. It is curious to observe that a general custom of the boarding houses at the present time, originated in the old hall. I mean the practice of having oysters on Sunday.

Any one who could get a doctor's certificate to the blessings of a chronic dyspepsia, or an incipient cholera-morbus, was sent to the Invalids' table, where he enjoyed better fare. To these accommodations a Senior or a Tutor prefixed and affixed a grace, during the delivery of which two forks were sometimes observed sticking into each potato on the table.

The Tutors themselves sat at elevated tables, and, getting but little chance to eat, from time to time rapped with their knife-handles to call to order some indecorous mal-content who compared the bread to bricks or started up the second Perfect Indicative of Baivw, to denote a disinclination to ill-cooked lamb.

Connected with these times, was the custom of "podding," as it was called. Whenever pease were to be boiled for dinner, all undergraduates were summoned to assist in shelling them, and if any man was absent, the rest collected the pods and threw them, without ceremony into the delinquent's room.

After the abolition of the buttery, in 1817, the "sizings" were purchased at a store which stood on the site of the cellar just west of Pond's old establishment, and the proprietor, by various little arts well known to his successors, continued to amass quite a considerable fortune.

Supper (hardly tea, for this beverage was little used in those days) was provided by the students in their own apartments. Cellar room was rented for the storage of their apples and other provisions, and this cellarage cost more than the rent of a college room. Supper in commons was discontinued as early as 1759. The public meal consisted of bread and milk, with the alternative of apple pie, in case the cows didn't come home in season.

The old hall was the scene of much disorder. Isaac C. Bates, who graduated in 1802, and was afterward a senator of the United States, was distinguished for his physical powers. On one occasion he administered a severe chastisement to Schowles, the head cook, because the pewter platters were not clean, and the table was not kept in proper order. Rev. Mr. Mitchell mentions a charge while he was in college of six hundred tumblers and thirty coffee pots destroyed or carried off in a single term. Just before the old hall was abandoned, there was a three days' rebellion of the Freshmen and Sophomores, which required all the gentleness and firmness of President Day to quell.

The new hall (now the Cabinet building) was opened in 1819, under better auspices. Every effort was made to remove all just grounds of complaint. It was intended to give to the meals all the comfort and order which is obtained in well regulated families. The professors dropped in to dinner on rainy days. The tables were mahogany instead of pine. They were abundantly supplied with crockery. Nor was it all mere show. By the enthusiastic efforts of the new steward, Mr. Stephen Twining, the board was laden with the fat of the land. His first dinner was a triumph of culinary skill. But after it was over, Mr. Twining remarked to the President, "I have got through with one dinner, but I don't know how I shall ever get through with another." There was no reason to complain of Mr. Twining's administration. He provided 5000 lbs. of turkey the first term, and oysters twice a week. The price for all these good things was only $2 a week, and this was twenty-five cents more than had been anticipated.

The West Hall was an establishment which stood on the college ground west of South College. Notice is first given of its opening in the annual catalogue of 1827. It is last mentioned in the catalogue of 1838-39. Here good board was obtained at about fifty cents less than the usual rate per week.

For a while the new arrangement worked beautifully, and more than justified the hopes of success which had been entertained. But by degrees, disorder and discontent crept in. This came to a focus in

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