EXHIBITS IN WIDENER SHOW 1737 PARIETALS

Although nobody except the "President, tutors, and professors" were allowed to use "threats and blows" to compel Freshmen to work, if a present Yardling were to be transported back two centuries in time he would hardly call his position a bed of roses.

These and lots of other rules of eighteenth century Harvard are all on exhibition now in the cases up at Widener Library.

Hazing is going out of fashion everywhere, and here in Cambridge no one theoretically knows a man of '41 from a Senior, but back in 1737 every one could tell a Freshman--because he couldn't wear a hat. In later days, the rule was slackened a little, and if the first year man in question had to go out in a blizzard, he sometimes risked just a cap--and usually got away with it.

And you couldn't tell the self-important Sophomore that "Aw, I didn't know the rules," either. One requirement for every incoming student to Harvard was to write out all the Regulations in longhand, and file them with the Dean.

Rules of precedence as to who could boss the Freshmen were carefully worked out. "A Senior sophister has authority to take a Freshman from a Sophomore, a middle bachelor from a Junior Sophister, a master from a Senior sophister, and any governor of the college from a master."