Gala-Days [124]
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
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