Widener Archives Reveal Strange Facts About Days When Freshmen "Could Not be Saucy"

If great-granddaddy went to Harvard and you want to know if he attended chapel as he was required to do, if he attended all his classes, if he was fined for using profane language, if he failed to raise his hat when passing his professor, or any other question that no one else can answer, the answer will be found in the records of the University archives which are down in the depths of Widener.

We had vague rumors of the existence of such a place but had not had sufficient time and ambition to go down and visit it until the other day when we had a free morning and Professor Lake failed to show up at English 35a. We were shown all the vital documents of the University since the 1640's carefully locked up in fireproof cases and spent the next two hours reading about the activities of colonial Harvard.

Interesting Anecdotes Found

The first entry in the first college book was an inventory of all the glass in the college buildings. It appeared as though the early authorities had little to do with their time, but it seems that the glass situation was serious in the first hundred years of the University's existence because it was an established habit among the students to throw brickbats and firewood through the windows of those of their tutors who were not popular and the Steward kept a special column on the quarter bills to keep a record of the amount of glass for which the student must pay. The Book is an important part of the inauguration ceremony as presented under the regimes of the colonial presidents and President Conant and was rebound last year in heavy morocco leather by the library bindery which is hidden away in the same part of the building. This book has the drawing for the seal which we know today, but the word "Veritas" did not appear on the metal seal until 1885 because the sealcutters' art was before then not sufficiently developed to cut the words over the books.

Diary of John Leverett

Reading the diary of John Leverett, the first lay president, we learned that the tutors, or professors, were the Fellows of the college while the ministers of Watertown, Boston, Cambridge, Char- lestown, Dorchester, and Roxbury together with the members of the Governor's Council formed the Board of Overseers--hence their present day title of Honorable and Reverend Gentlemen.

College Rules

It was the practice in the earlier days to make the Freshman copy the rules of the college to make sure that they were read, and there are several of these copies still in the files. The "Admittatur" of Ebenezer Stores written in 1747, in his "freshmanship year," was signed by the president and the four members of faculty who formed the entire staff. In this record of the man who was to become the treasurer of the University in the post-Revolutionary period, and who was to have the task of straightening the accounts left by John Hancock whom he succeeded, we find a long list of the rules for Freshmen. The beginner should not wear his hat in the Yard "except it rains, halls, or snows, or be on horseback or have both hands full." Furthermore, he must pull his hat off when passing his tutor, and he could not be saucy to his Seniors, laugh in his Seniors' face, loittor when sent on errands, and after some 18 or 20 more of such instructions, he is warned that he shall be severely punished if he should break any of these items.

Doubtful Morals

But in spite of all these rules, it seems as though the student morals were not as high as they are today for there are records of men being dismissed for stealing firewood with which to break windows, stealing money, and carrying the answers to the first fifteen problems of the Algebra examination into the examination with him. In defense of the last, the student claimed that it was the accepted custom except for the first fifteen students who were not supposed to carry the answers. But the culprits were all re-admitted after writing a series of abject apologies, because the college could not afford to lose the business.

As a catch-all for all important relics, the archives are a veritable museum of Harvard history. Here are kept the seals of the college and the keys of the college which are carried at inauguration in the left hand of the Steward, now the vice-president, and which were presented to the college by Steward Stearns who assisted in the inauguration of six presidents ending with Ellot.

The records of the land owned by the University in Maine which were given to it by the state when the state had no money, and the records of the sloops "Harvard" and "Cyrus," which were used to bring firewood cut in Maine down to the college, are still intact.

Class Reports

Class secretaries are continually sending into the archives division mementos of the members of their classes, and there is now an extensive collection of the correspondence of the various members of the classes as well as the University records relating to their attendance at class and chapel, their parentage cards, and their records as kept by the deans' office. Among the more curious contributions are several napkin rings, a white silk necktie which was worn at the commencement of 1862, and a diploma which was put in a safe when the Chicago fire threatened the house and which was subjected to such intense heat that the 10 by 17 parchment shrunk to about 5 by 7 without making the inscription illegible. Some of the menus for class banquets show 13 kinds of game on the menu beside the main course of roast turkey.

Records of Societies

A now effort on the part of the division is to gather together the records of the various societies which are associated with Harvard. A large collection has already been made. But it is still being entered rapidly. One of the most interesting was the almost forgotten Med Fac Society, which flourished about fifty years ago, with its main object the perpetration of practical jokes, including sending the chapel bibles to our friends in New Haven