The degrees are given on Commencement Day, at which occasion certain of the expectant graduates are selected to take parts in a public literary exhibition. To be so selected seems to be tantamount to taking a degree in honors. There is also a dinner on Commencement Day, at which, however, "no wine or other intoxicating drink shall be served."It is required that every student shall attend some place of Christian worship on Sundays; but he, or his parents for him, may elect what denomination of church he shall attend. There is a university chapel on the university grounds which belongs, if Iremember aright, to the Episcopalian church. The young men, for the most part, live in college, having rooms in the college buildings; but they do not board in those rooms. There are establishments in the town, under the patronage of the university, at which dinner, breakfast, and supper are provided; and the young men frequent one of these houses or another as they, or their friends for them, may arrange. Every young man not belonging to a family resident within a hundred miles of Cambridge, and whose parents are desirous to obtain the protection thus provided, is placed, as regards his pecuniary management, under the care of a patron; and this patron acts by him as a father does in England by a boy at school. He pays out his money for him and keeps him out of debt. The arrangement will not recommend itself to young men at Oxford quite so powerfully as it may do to the fathers of some young men who have been there. The rules with regard to the lodging and boarding houses are very stringent. Any festive entertainment is to be reported to the president. No wine or spirituous liquors may be used, etc. It is not a picturesque system, this; but it has its advantages.
There is a handsome library attached to the college which the young men can use, but it is not as extensive as I had expected. The university is not well off for funds by which to increase it. The new museum in the college is also a handsome building. The edifices used for the undergraduates' chambers and for the lecture-rooms are by no means handsome. They are very ugly, red brick houses, standing here and there without order. There are seven such; and they are called Brattle House, College House, Divinity Hall, Hollis Hall, Holsworthy Hall, Massachusetts Hall, and Stoughton Hall. It is almost astonishing that buildings so ugly should have been erected for such a purpose. These, together with the library, the museum, and the chapel, stand on a large green, which might be made pretty enough if it were kept well mown, like the gardens of our Cambridge colleges; but it is much neglected.
Here, again, the want of funds--the auqusta res domi--must be pleaded as an excuse. On the same green, but at some little distance from any other building, stands the president's pleasant house.
The immediate direction of the college is of course mainly in the hands of the president, who is supreme. But for the general management of the institution there is a corporation, of which he is one. It is stated in the laws of the university that the Corporation of the University and its Overseers constitute the Government of the University. The Corporation consists of the President, five Fellows so called, and a Treasurer. These Fellows are chosen, as vacancies occur, by themselves, subject to the concurrence of the Overseers. But these Fellows are in nowise like to the Fellows of our colleges, having no salaries attached to their offices. The Board of Overseers consists of the State Governor, other State officers, the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, and thirty other persons, men of note, chosen by vote. The Faculty of the College, in which is vested the immediate care and government of the undergraduates, is composed of the President and the Professors. The Professors answer to the tutors of our colleges, and upon them the education of the place depends.
I cannot complete this short notice of Harvard College without saying that it is happy in the possession of that distinguished natural philosopher Professor Agassiz. M. Agassiz has collected at Cambridge a museum of such things as natural philosophers delight to show, which I am told is all but invaluable. As my ignorance on all such matters is of a depth which the professor can hardly imagine, and which it would have shocked him to behold, I did not visit the museum. Taking the University of Harvard College as a whole, I should say that it is most remarkable in this--that it does really give to its pupils that education which it professes to give. Of our own universities other good things may be said, but that one special good thing cannot always be said.
Cambridge boasts itself as the residence of four or five men well known to fame on the American and also on the European side of the ocean. President Felton's* name is very familiar to us; and wherever Greek scholarship is held in repute, that is known. So also is the name of Professor Agassiz, of whom I have spoken.
Russell Lowell is one of the professors of the college--that Russell Lowell who sang of Birdofredum Sawin, and whose Biglow Papers were edited with such an ardor of love by our Tom Brown, Birdofredum is worthy of all the ardor. Mr. Dana is also a Cambridge man--he who was "two years before the mast," and who since that has written to us of Cuba. But Mr. Dana, though residing at Cambridge, is not of Cambridge; and, though a literary man, he does not belong to literature. He is--could he help it?--a "special attorney." I must not, however, degrade him; for in the States barristers and attorneys are all one. I cannot but think that he could help it, and that he should not give up to law what was meant for mankind. I fear, however, that successful Law has caught him in her intolerant clutches, and that Literature, who surely would be the nobler mistress, must wear the willow. Last and greatest is the poet-laureate of the West, for Mr. Longfellow also lives at Cambridge.