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The History of Commons

133

wit to add a judicious selection of such attractions to the wretched monotony of their regular table, they might have made Commons the most popular part of the curriculum.

Howbeit, for the first century or so of Harvard’s history the students seem to have endured their gastronomic hardships with a rather surprising amount of resignation.^[1] After all, they were very young and very few,^[2] — Increase Mather referred to them contemp-

↑ Peirce, however, goes so far as to say that “Commons, from the first establishment of Harvard College (when, in imitation of the English Colleges, they were introduced), seem to have been a never-failing source of uneasiness and disturbance.” Hist. Harv. Uni., 217.
↑ Toward the end of the seventeenth century, the number of students, instead of exhibiting a normal growth, diminished most alarmingly. Several classes graduated only three members; and in 1672, 1682, and 1688 there were no graduates at all In 1674 there was only one (although by manipulating the catalogue the number of degrees was subsequently bolstered up to three), and great anxiety was felt at “the paucity of Scholars in the Colledge; the number of whom falls now far short of what hath been in former daies.” In November of 1674, the students were so dissatisfied with the administration that “all except three, whose friends live in Cambridge, left the college.” Few readers, I think, realize how near Harvard came to extinction during that decade. Its reputation and good name were sinking as fast as the attendance; the discipline (including flogging) was outrageously severe; the ruinous old “house” was practically uninhabitable; the Corporation were resigning right and left; the treasury was empty and heavily in debt; the managers were preposterously successful in antagonizing prospective benefactors; the salaried officers were all dismissed except the president (Hoar), who was threatened with the same fate; and the best friends of the institution conceded that “a sentence of death for the present seems to be written upon it” Under Mather, however, the old average of attendance was sufficiently recovered to make his sneer applicable. See Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections III, i, 63, 65; Colonial Soc. Transactions, xi, 339; Sibley, Harvard Graduates, i, 237, ii, 418, 444; Quinquennial Catalogue; Harvard Book, i, 36, etc.

[1] Peirce, however, goes so far as to say that “Commons, from the first establishment of Harvard College (when, in imitation of the English Colleges, they were introduced), seem to have been a never-failing source of uneasiness and disturbance.” Hist. Harv. Uni., 217.

[2] Toward the end of the seventeenth century, the number of students, instead of exhibiting a normal growth, diminished most alarmingly. Several classes graduated only three members; and in 1672, 1682, and 1688 there were no graduates at all In 1674 there was only one (although by manipulating the catalogue the number of degrees was subsequently bolstered up to three), and great anxiety was felt at “the paucity of Scholars in the Colledge; the number of whom falls now far short of what hath been in former daies.” In November of 1674, the students were so dissatisfied with the administration that “all except three, whose friends live in Cambridge, left the college.” Few readers, I think, realize how near Harvard came to extinction during that decade. Its reputation and good name were sinking as fast as the attendance; the discipline (including flogging) was outrageously severe; the ruinous old “house” was practically uninhabitable; the Corporation were resigning right and left; the treasury was empty and heavily in debt; the managers were preposterously successful in antagonizing prospective benefactors; the salaried officers were all dismissed except the president (Hoar), who was threatened with the same fate; and the best friends of the institution conceded that “a sentence of death for the present seems to be written upon it” Under Mather, however, the old average of attendance was sufficiently recovered to make his sneer applicable. See Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections III, i, 63, 65; Colonial Soc. Transactions, xi, 339; Sibley, Harvard Graduates, i, 237, ii, 418, 444; Quinquennial Catalogue; Harvard Book, i, 36, etc.

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