The year following John Harvard's bequest the Cambridge printing-press was set up, the only press in America north of Mexico. The General Court appointed licensers of this press, and did not scruple to interfere with the licensers themselves when any suspicion of heresy occurred to torment the minds of the worthy fathers. Their supervision over other departments of management was equally strict. Mrs. Eaton, wife of the first president of the college, was examined before the General Court on a complaint of short or disagreeable commons urged by the students. "The breakfast was two sizings of bread and a cue (or Q, quartus) of beer; and the evening commons were a pye." What became of Mrs. Eaton, further than that the blame of the dissensions rested on her bad housewifery, I do not know. Subsequently a law was passed "for reforming the extravagancies of commencements," by which it was provided that "henceforth no preparation nor provision of either plumb cake, or roasted, boyled, or baked meates or pyes of any kind shall be made by any commencer;" no such was to have "any distilled lyquours in his chamber, or any composition therewith," under the penalty of a forfeiture of the good things, and a fine of twenty shillings. There was another act passed, "that if any, who now doe or hereafter shall stand for their degrees, presume to doe anything contrary to the said act, or goe about to evade it by plain cake, they shall forfeit the honours of the college." Yet another law was passed to prohibit "the costly habits of many of the scholars, their wearing gold or silver lace or brocades, silk nightgowns, &c., as tending to discourage persons from giving their children a college education, and as inconsistent with the gravity and decency proper to be observed in this society."
For a hundred years after its establishment, Harvard College enforced the practice, in those days common in Europe, of punishing refractory students by corporeal infliction. In Judge Sewell's manuscript diary the following entry is found, dated June 15, 1674: "This was his sentence (Thos. Sargeant's):—
"That being convicted of speaking blasphemous words concerning the H.G., he should be therefore publickly whipped before all the scholars.
"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.)
"Sit by himself in the hall uncovered at meals, during the pleasure of the president and fellows, and being 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 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."
In 1733 a tutor was prosecuted for inflicting this kind of punishment; yet, in the revised body of laws made in the next year, we find the following: "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."
The times are not a little changed. Of late years the students have more than once appeared to have almost come up to the point of boxing their tutors.
If Harvard is ever to recover her supremacy, to resume her station in usefulness and in the affections of the people, it must be by a renovation of her management, and a change in some of the principles recognised by her. Every one is eager to acknowledge her past services. All American citizens are proud of the array of great men whom she has sent forth to serve and grace the country; but, like some other universities, she is falling behind the age. Her glory is declining, even in its external manifestations; and it must decline as long as the choicest youth of the community are no longer sent to study within her walls.
The politics of the managers of Harvard University are opposed to those of the great body of the American people. She is the aristocratic college of the United States. Her pride of antiquity, her vanity of pre-eminence and wealth, are likely to prevent her renovating her principles and management so as to suit the wants of the period; and she will probably receive a sufficient patronage from the aristocracy, for a considerable time to come, to encourage her in all her faults. She has a great name, and the education she affords is very expensive in comparison with all other colleges. The sons of the wealthy will therefore flock to her. The attainments usually made within her walls are inferior to those achieved elsewhere, her professors (poorly salaried, when the expenses of living are considered) being accustomed to lecture and examine the students, and do nothing more. The indolent and the careless will therefore flock to her. But, meantime, more and more new colleges are rising up, and are filled as fast as they rise, whose principles and practices are better suited to the wants of the time. In them living is cheaper, and the professors are therefore richer with the same or smaller salaries; the sons of the yeomanry and mechanic classes resort to them; and, where it is the practice of the tutors to work with their pupils, as well as lecture to them, a proficiency is made which shames the attainments of the Harvard students. The middle and lower classes are usually neither Unitarian nor Episcopalian, but "orthodox," as their distinctive term is; and these, the strength and hope of the nation, avoid Harvard, and fill to overflowing the oldest orthodox colleges; and, when these will hold no more, establish new ones.