Gala-Days

by Gail Hamilton

I hear that the ground is taken that the affairs of Class-Day are not a legitimate subject of public comment; that it is a private matter of the Senior Class, of which one has no more right to speak in print than one has so to speak of a house in Beacon Street to which one might be invited. Is it indeed so? I have no right to go into Mr. Smith's house in Beacon Street,—I use the term Smith as simply generic, not meaning to imply for a moment that so plebeian a name ever marred a Beacon Street door-plate,—and subsequently print that I was hospitably entreated, or that the chair-covers were faded and the conversation brilliant. Neither have I any right to go into Master Jones's room, in Hollis Hall, and inform the public that he keeps wine in his cigar-box, and that he entertained his friends awkwardly or gracefully. But suppose all the Beacon Street families have a custom of devoting one day of every year to festivities, in which festivities all Boston, and all the friends, and the friends' friends, whom each Beacon Street family chooses to invite, are invited to partake. The Common, and the State-House, and the Music-Hall, &c. are set apart for dancing, the houses are given up to feasting,—and this occurs year after year. Is it a strictly private affair? I have still no right to denounce or applaud or in any way characterize Mr. Smith's special arrangements; but have I not a right to discuss in the most public manner the general features of the custom? May I not say that I consider feasting a possible danger, and the dancing a certain evil, and assign my reasons for these opinions?

I have spoken of the condition of some of the buildings. I find in the College records repeated instances of the College authorities appealing to the public concerning this very thing. So early as 1651, the Rev. Henry Dunster, President of the College, represented to the Commissioners of the United Colonies the decaying condition of the College buildings, and the necessity of their repair and enlargement: and the Commisioners reply, that they will recommend to the Colonies to give some yearly help, by pecks, half-bushels, and bushels of wheat. Is a subject that is brought before Congress improper to be brought before the public in a magazine?

I have spoken of the banqueting arranged by the Senior Class. Is that private? I find in a book regularly printed and published, a book written by a former President of the College,—a man whom no words of mine can affect, yet whom I cannot pass without laying at his feet my tribute of gratitude and reverence; a man who lives to receive from his contemporaries the honors which are generally awarded only by posterity,—I find in this book accounts of votes passed by the Corporation and Overseers, prohibiting Commencers from "preparing or providing either plum-cake, or roasted, boiled, or baked meats, or pies of any kind"; and afterwards, if anyone should do anything contrary to this act, or "go about to evade it by plain cake, they shall not be admitted to their degree; and also, "that commons be of better quality, have more variety, clean table-cloths of convenient length and breadth twice a week, and that plates be allowed." Now if the plum-cake and pies of the "Commencers" are spread before the public, how shall one know that the plum-cake and pies of an occasion at least equally public, and only a month beforehand, must not be mentioned? If any family in Beacon Street should publish its housekeeping rules and items in this unhesitating manner, I think a very pardonable confusion of ideas might exist as to what was legitimately public, and what must be held private. If it be said that these items concern a period from which the many years that have since elapsed remove the seal of silence, I have but to turn to the Boston Daily Advertiser, a journal whose taste and judgment are unquestionable, and find in its issue of July 18, 1863, eight closely printed columns devoted to a minute description of what they said, and what they did, at the College festival arranged by the Association of the Alumni, in which description may be read such eminently private incidents as that—by some unfortunate mistake, which would have been a death-blow to any Beacon Street housekeeper—there were one hundred more guests than there were plates, and—what it might be hoped would be quite unnecessary to state—that the unlucky De trop "bore the disappointment with the most admirable good-breeding, AND RETIRED FROM THE HALL WITHOUT NOISE OR DISTURBANCE." (Noble army of martyrs! Let a monument more durable than brass rise in the hearts of their countrymen to commemorate their heroism, and let it graven all over, in characters of living light, with the old-time query, "Why didn't Jack eat his supper?")

I find also in the same issue of the same paper the Commencement Dinner, its guests, its quantity and quality, its talk, its singing of songs, and giving of gifts, spread before the public. If, now, the festivities of Commencement and of the Alumni Association are public, by what token shall one know that the festivities of Class-Day, which have every appearance of being just as public, are in reality a family affair, and strictly private?

I have spoken of waltzing. The propriety of my speaking must stand or fall with the previous count. But in the book to which I have before referred is recorded a vote passed by the Overseers, "To restrain unsuitable and unseasonable dancing in the College." If a rule of the College is published throughout the land, is not the land in some measure appealed to, and may it not speak when it thinks it sees a custom in open and systematic violation of the rule?

But, independent of this special rule, Harvard College was founded in the early days of the Colony. It was the pet and pride and hope of the colonists. They gave to it of their abundance and their poverty. To what end? "Dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches," says the author of "New England First-Fruits." The first Constitution of the College declares one of its objects to be "to make and establish all such orders, statutes, and constitutions as they shall see necessary for the instituting, guiding, and furthering of the said College, and the several members thereof, from time to time, in piety, morality, and learning." Later, its objects are said to be "the advancement of all good literature, arts, and sciences," and "the education of the English and Indian youth of this country in knowledge and godliness." Of the rules of the College, one is, "Let every student be earnestly pressed to consider well the main end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life, and, therefore, to lay Christ in the bottom, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning." Quincy says that to the Congregational clergy the "institution is perhaps more indebted than to any other class of men for early support, if not for existence." That it has not avowedly turned aside from its original object is indicated by the motto which it still bears, Christo et Ecclesiae. Now I wish to know if the official sanction of this College, founded by statesmen-clergy for the promotion of piety and learning, to further the welfare of the State, consecrated to Christ and the Church, is to be given to a practice which no one will maintain positively conduces to either piety or learning, which many believe to be positively detrimental to both, and which an overwhelming majority of the clergy who founded the College, and of their ecclesiastical descendants at the present day, would, I am confident, condemn, and yet is not to be publicly spoken of, because it is a private affair! Has it any right to privacy? Does the College belong to a Senior Class, or to the State? Have the many donations been given, and the appropriations been made, for the pleasure or even profit of any one class, or for the whole Commonwealth? Has any class any right to introduce in any College hall, or anywhere, as a College class, with the sanction of the Faculty, a custom which is entirely disconnected with either learning or piety, a custom of doubtful propriety, not to say morality inasmuch as many believe it to be wrong, and a custom, therefore, whose tendency is to weaken confidence in the College, and consequently to restrict its beneficence? And is the discussion of this thing a violation of the rites of hospitality?

These are my counts against "Class-Day," as it is now conducted. It contains much that is calculated to promote neither learning nor godliness, but to retard both. Neither literary nor moral excellence seems to enter as an element into its standard. In point of notoriety and popular interest it seems to me to reach, if not to over-top, Commencement-Day, and therefore it tends to subordinate scholarship to other and infinitely less important matters. It in a manner necessitates an expenditure which many are ill able to bear, and under which, I have reason to believe, many parents do groan, being burdened. It has not the pleasure and warmth of reunion to recommend it, for it precedes separation. The expense is not incurred by men who are masters of their own career, who know where they stand and what they can do; but chiefly by boys who are dependent upon others, and whose knowledge of ways and means is limited, while their knowledge of wants is deep and pressing and aggressive. It is an extraordinary and unnecessary expense, coming in the midst of ordinary and necessary expense, while the question of reimbursement is still entirely in abeyance. It launches young men at the outset of their career into extravagance and display,—limited indeed in range, but rampant within that range,—and thereby throws the influence of highest authority in favor of, rather than against, that reckless profusion, display, and dissipation which is the weakness and the bane of our social life. It signalizes in a marked and public manner the completion of the most varied and thorough course of study in the country, and the commencement of a career which should be the most noble and beneficial, not by peculiar and appropriate ceremonies, but by the commonest rites of the lecture-room and ball-room; and I cannot but think that, especially at this period of history, when no treasure is esteemed too precious for sacrifice, and the land is red with the blood of her best and bravest,—when Harvard herself mourns for her children lost, but glories in heroes fallen,—that the most obvious and prominent customs of Class-Day would be more honored in the breach than in the observance.

I look upon the violation of hospitality as one of the seven deadly sins,—a sin for which no punishment is too great; but this sin I have not consciously, and I do not think I have actually, committed. I cannot but suspect, that, if I had employed the language of exclusive eulogy,—such language as is employed at and concerning the Commencement dinners and the Alumni dinners, I might have described the celebration of Class-Day with much more minuteness than I have attempted to do, and should have heard no complaints of violated hospitality. This I would gladly have done, had it been possible. As it was not, I have pointed out those features which seemed to me objectionable,—certainly with no design so ridiculous as that of setting up myself against Harvard University, but equally certainly with no heart so craven as to shrink from denouncing what seemed to me wrong because it would be setting myself against Harvard University. Opinions must be judged by their own weight, not by the weight of the persons who utter them. The fair fame of Harvard is the possession of every son and daughter of Massachusetts, and the least stain that mars her escutcheon is the sorrow of all. But Harvard is not the Ark of the Covenant, to be touched only by consecrated hands, upon penalty of instant death. She is honorable, but not sacred; wise, but not infallible. To Christo et Ecclesiae, she has a right; to Noli me tangere, she has none. A very small hand may hurl an arrow. If it is heaven-directed, it may pierce in between the joints of the armor. If not, it may rebound upon the archer. I make the venture, promising that I shall not follow the example of that President of Harvard who died of a broken heart, because, according to Cotton Mather, he "FELL UNDER THE DISPLEASURE OF CERTAIN GOOD MEN WHO MADE A FIGURE IN THAT NEIGHBORHOOD."

As it may never again happen to me to be writing about colleges, I desire to say in this paper everything I have to say on the subject, and therefore take this opportunity to refer to the practice of "hazing," although it is but remotely connected with Class-Day. If we should find it among hinds, a remnant of the barbarisms of the Dark Ages, blindly handed down by such slow-growing people as go to mill with their meal on side of the saddle and a stone on the other to balance, as their fathers did, because it never occurred to them to divide the meal into two parcels and make it balance itself, we should be surprised; but "hazing" occurs among boys who have been accustomed to the circulation of ideas, boys old enough and intelligent enough understand the difference between brutality and frolic, old enough to know what honor and rage mean, and therefore I cannot conceive how they should countenance a practice which entirely ignores and defies honor, and which not a single redeeming feature. It has neither wisdom nor wit, no spirit, no genius, no impulsiveness, scarcely boyish mirth. A narrow range of stale practical jokes, lighted up by no gleam of originality, seems to be transmitted from year to year with as much fidelity as the Hebrew Bible, and not half the latitude allowed to clergymen of the English Established Church. But besides its platitude, its one over-powering and fatal characteristic is its intense and essential cowardice. Cowardice is its head and front and bones and blood. One boy does not single out another boy of his own weight, and take his chances in a fair stand-up fight. But a party of Sophomores club together in such numbers as to render opposition useless, and pounce upon their victim unawares, as Brooks and his minions pounced upon Sumner, and as the Southern chivalry is given to doing. For sweet pity's sake, let this mode of warfare be monopolized by the Southern chivalry.

The lame excuse is offered, that it does the Freshmen good,—takes the conceit out of them. But if there is any Class in College so divested of conceit as to be justified in throwing stones, it is surely not the Sophomore Class. Moreover, whatever good it may do the sufferers, it does harm, and only harm, to the perpetrators; and neither the Law nor the Gospel requires a man to improve other people's characters at the expense of his own. Nobody can do a wrong without injuring himself; and no young man can do a mean, cowardly wrong like this without suffering severest injury. It is the very spirit of the slaveholder, a dastardly and detestable, a tyrannical and cruel spirit. If young men are so blinded by custom and habit that a meanness is not to them a meanness because it has been practised for years, so much the worse for the young men, and so much the worse for our country, whose sweat of blood attests the bale and blast which this evil spirit has wrought. If uprightness, if courage, if humanity and rectitude and the mind conscious to itself of right are anything more than a name, let the young men who mean to make time minister to life scorn this debasing and stupid practice.