William and Mary College, during the days of Jefferson and Monroe, was "a riot of pleasure and power, a jumble of royalist splendor and patriotic fervor, an awe of learning, and indulgence of vice." Thomas Jefferson, the most eminent graduate of the college, and its cordial friend, in advanced life remembered the "regular annual riot and battles between the students and the town boys;" and bore testimony to other greater evils. From one source and another have come down to us complaints that the college was neither a college, nor a grammar school, nor an Indian hospital; that its teachers squabbled among themselves to the detriment of their academic work; and that some of the professors sent out by the bishops of London were drunken, quarrelsome, and ignorant of the subjects they professed to teach.
The president, representing the bishop, might have brought charges against the clergy for their flagrant drunkenness but he refrained, being himself a notorious drunkard. Farquier, representative of the crown, was the most finished gentleman Virginia had known, and also the most demoralizing. He introduced a passion for high play that ruined many a fine old family, encouraged hard drinking and a mania for racing, delighted in having the clergy and favored students join him in his all-night revels.
Commencement at Harvard in Old New England days was a fête indeed; a fête so important as to be attended by giant expenditures and sinful extravagance. Indeed, so early as 1722 in its history, an act was passed "that henceforth no preparation nor provision of either Plumb Cake, or Roasted, Boyled or Baked Meats or Pyes of any kind shall be made by any Commencer," and that "no such have any distilled liquors in his Chamber or any composition therewith," under penalty of twenty shillings or forfeiture of the said provisions. Five years later several acts were passed "for preventing the Excesses, Immoralities and Disorders of the Commencements," by way of enforcing the foregoing act. These, with a simplicity of conclusion which brings a smile, declare 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 honors of the college.
In the latter part of the eighteenth century the Yale College butler held his buttery in the ground floor, front corner room, of South Middle College, and sold cider, metheglin, strong beer, together with loaf sugar, etc., to the students. Dr. Lyman Beecher, in his autobiography, says of old Doctor Dwight, then president of the college: "Before he came college was in a most ungodly state.... Wine and liquor were kept in many rooms, intemperance, profanity, gambling, and licentiousness were common."
John Bacon, afterwards United States Senator, and Chief Justice of New Hampshire, sailed from Boston for Princeton College September 10, 1751. In his diary he states his outfit.
| 5 qts West India rum | 5 | 17 | 6 |
| 1 qr. lb. Tea, | 12 | ||
| 1 doz. fowls, | 2 | 10 | |
| 2 lbs. loaf sugar, | 16 | ||
| 1 doz-8 lemons, | 1 | 9 | |
| 3 lbs. butter, | 12 |
In a book published in 1764 describing student life at Princeton, it is stated that "the general table drink is beer or cider."
Washington Irving, in Salmagundi, described seeing two students at the tavern at Princeton who got drunk and cursed the professors. Madison was a poler at Princeton, and although the five o'clock horn was a sovereign preventive of midnight revelry, Madison was occasionally found around the blazing logs of the Nassau Inn, when tankards of ale and puffs at the long stemmed pipes punctuated the students' songs.
James Buchanan at Dickinson was the typical bad boy. Immorality was rampant among the students, sobriety and books were ridiculed. Buchanan became a leader in debauchery, although his physique enabled him at the same time to maintain a high rank in scholarship. The faculty chose him as a scapegoat, and he was expelled.
Benny Havens, the hero of the West Point song, for many years sold liquor illicitly to the cadets. The foundation of Vassar College was the fortune acquired by Matthew Vassar as a brewer.