"'June 15, 1674, Thomas Sargeant was examined by the Corporation finally. The advice of Mr. Danforth, Mr. Stoughton, Mr. Thacher, Mr. Mather (the present), was taken. This was his sentence:
"'That being convicted of speaking blasphemous words concerning the H.G., he should be therefore publickly whipped before all the scholars.
"'2. That he should be suspended as to taking his degree of Bachelor. (This sentence read before him twice at the President's before the Committee and in the Library, before execution.)
"'3. Sit alone by himself in the Hall uncovered at meals, during the pleasure of the President and Fellows, and be in all things obedient, doing what exercise was appointed him by the President, or else be finally expelled the College. The first was presently put in execution in the Library (Mr. Danforth, Jr. being present) before the scholars. He kneeled down, and the instrument, Goodman Hely, attended the President's word as to the performance of his part in the work. Prayer was had before and after by the President, July 1, 1674.'"
"Men's ideas," continues Mr. Peirce, "must have been very different from those of the present day, to have tolerated a law authorizing so degrading a treatment of the members of such a society. It may easily be imagined what complaints and uneasiness its execution must frequently have occasioned among the friends and connections of those who were the subjects of it. In one instance, it even occasioned the prosecution of a Tutor; but this was as late as 1733, when old rudeness had lost much of the people's reverence. The law, however, was suffered, with some modification, to continue more than a century. In the revised body of Laws made in the year 1734, we find this article: 'Notwithstanding the preceding pecuniary mulcts, it shall be lawful for the President, Tutors, and Professors, to punish Undergraduates by Boxing, when they shall judge the nature or circumstances of the offence call for it.' This relic of barbarism, however, was growing more and more repugnant to the general taste and sentiment. The late venerable Dr. Holyoke, who was of the class of 1746, observed, that in his day 'corporal punishment was going out of use'; and at length it was expunged from the code, never, we trust, to be recalled from the rubbish of past absurdities."—pp. 227, 228.
The last movements which were made in reference to corporal punishment are thus stated by President Quincy, in his History of Harvard University. "In July, 1755, the Overseers voted, that it [the right of boxing] should be 'taken away.' The Corporation, however, probably regarded it as too important an instrument of authority to be for ever abandoned, and voted, 'that it should be suspended, as to the execution of it, for one year.' When this vote came before the Overseers for their sanction, the board hesitated, and appointed a large committee 'to consider and make report what punishments they apprehend proper to be substituted instead of boxing, in case it be thought expedient to repeal or suspend the law which allows or establishes the same.' From this period the law disappeared, and the practice was discontinued."—Vol. II. p. 134.
The manner in which corporal punishment was formerly inflicted at Yale College is stated by President Woolsey, in his Historical Discourse, delivered at New Haven, August, 1850. After speaking of the methods of punishing by fines and degradation, he thus proceeds to this topic: "There was a still more remarkable punishment, as it must strike the men of our times, and which, although for some reason or other no traces of it exist in any of our laws so far as I have discovered, was in accordance with the 'good old plan,' pursued probably ever since the origin of universities. I refer—'horresco referens'—to the punishment of boxing or cuffing. It was applied before the Faculty to the luckless offender by the President, towards whom the culprit, in a standing position, inclined his head, while blows fell in quick succession upon either ear. No one seems to have been served in this way except Freshmen and commencing 'Sophimores.'[12] I do not find evidence that this usage much survived the first jubilee of the College. One of the few known instances of it, which is on other accounts remarkable, was as follows. A student in the first quarter of his Sophomore year, having committed an offence for which he had been boxed when a Freshman, was ordered to be boxed again, and to have the additional penalty of acting as butler's waiter for one week. On presenting himself, more academico, for the purpose of having his ears boxed, and while the blow was falling, he dodged and fled from the room and the College. The beadle was thereupon ordered to try to find him, and to command him to keep himself out of College and out of the yard, and to appear at prayers the next evening, there to receive further orders. He was then publicly admonished and suspended; but in four days after submitted to the punishment adjudged, which was accordingly inflicted, and upon his public confession his suspension was taken off. Such public confessions, now unknown, were then exceedingly common."
After referring to the instance mentioned above, in which corporal punishment was inflicted at Harvard College, the author speaks as follows, in reference to the same subject, as connected with the English universities. "The excerpts from the body of Oxford statutes, printed in the very year when this College was founded, threaten corporal punishment to persons of the proper age,—that is, below the age of eighteen,—for a variety of offences; and among the rest for disrespect to Seniors, for frequenting places where 'vinum aut quivis alius potus aut herba Nicotiana ordinarie venditur,' for coming home to their rooms after the great Tom or bell of Christ's Church had sounded, and for playing football within the University precincts or in the city streets. But the statutes of Trinity College, Cambridge, contain more remarkable rules, which are in theory still valid, although obsolete in fact. All the scholars, it is there said, who are absent from prayers,—Bachelors excepted,—if over eighteen years of age, 'shall be fined a half-penny, but if they have not completed the year of their age above mentioned, they shall be chastised with rods in the hall on Friday.' At this chastisement all undergraduates were required to be lookers on, the Dean having the rod of punishment in his hand; and it was provided also, that whosoever should not answer to his name on this occasion, if a boy, should be flogged on Saturday. No doubt this rigor towards the younger members of the society was handed down from the monastic forms which education took in the earlier schools of the Middle Ages. And an advance in the age of admission, as well as a change in the tone of treatment of the young, may account for this system being laid aside at the universities; although, as is well known, it continues to flourish at the great public schools of England."—pp. 49-51.
CORPORATION. The general government of colleges and universities is usually vested in a corporation aggregate, which is preserved by a succession of members. "The President and Fellows of Harvard College," says Mr. Quincy in his History of Harvard University, "being the only Corporation in the Province, and so continuing during the whole of the seventeenth century, they early assumed, and had by common usage conceded to them, the name of "The Corporation," by which they designate themselves in all the early records. Their proceedings are recorded as being done 'at a meeting of the Corporation,' or introduced by the formula, 'It is ordered by the Corporation,' without stating the number or the names of the members present, until April 19th, 1675, when, under President Oakes, the names of those present were first entered on the records, and afterwards they were frequently, though not uniformly, inserted."—Vol. I. p. 274.
2. At Trinity College, Hartford, the Corporation, on which the House of Convocation is wholly dependent, and to which, by law, belongs the supreme control of the College, consists of not more than twenty-four Trustees, resident within the State of Connecticut; the Chancellor and President of the College being ex officio members, and the Chancellor being ex officio President of the same. They have authority to fill their own vacancies; to appoint to offices and professorships; to direct and manage the funds for the good of the College; and, in general, to exercise the powers of a collegiate society, according to the provisions of the charter.—Calendar Trin. Coll., 1850, p. 6.