A Collection of College Words and Customs by Benjamin Homer Hall
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page 137 of 755 (18%)
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seized by the tutors_." The President and Corporation were
accustomed to visit the rooms of the Commencers, "to see if the laws prohibiting certain meats and drinks were not violated." These restrictions not being sufficient, a vote passed the Corporation in 1727, declaring, that "if any, who now doe, or hereafter shall, stand for their degrees, presume to doe any thing contrary to the act of 11th June, 1722, or _go about to evade it by plain cake_, they shall not be admitted to their degree, and if any, after they have received their degree, shall presume to make any forbidden provisions, their names shall be left or rased out of the Catalogue of the Graduates." In 1749, the Corporation strongly recommended to the parents and guardians of such as were to take degrees that year, "considering the awful judgments of God upon the land," to "retrench Commencement expenses, so as may best correspond with the frowns of Divine Providence, and that they take effectual care to have their sons' chambers cleared of company, and their entertainments finished, on the evening of said Commencement Day, or, at furthest, by next morning." In 1755, attempts were made to prevent those "who proceeded Bachelors of Arts from having entertainments of any kind, either in the College or any house in Cambridge, after the Commencement Day." This and several other propositions of the Overseers failing to meet with the approbation of the Corporation, a vote finally passed both boards in 1757, by which it was ordered, that, on account of the "distressing drought upon the land," and "in consideration of the dark state of Providence with respect to the war we are engaged in, which Providences call for humiliation and fasting rather than festival entertainments," the "first and second degrees be given to the several candidates |
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