them all. And it is strange to see how scrupulously that system was for a long time carried out.
The College Butler was originally an important personage, usually a prominent young graduate.[1] He was a sort of major-domo, not only lording it in the buttery and cellars, but serving as head janitor, ringing the college bell, and “waiting on the President and the Professors for their orders.” Like those worthies he had a special freshman told off to assist him; for the freshmen, again after the English tradition, were “fags” not only for the seniors but for all the officers too. In the buttery, the link between the kitchen and the hall, the names of all those to be fed—that is, every man jack in College—were posted on large boards, the earliest form of catalogue.[2] To “enter one’s name in the buttery” therefore was the equivalent of matriculating or “registering.” As a corollary, the Butler kept track of all absences, excuses, suspensions, fines, and other punishments, assigned the students’ rooms, kept the books, and seems to have had the principal hand in making out the term-bills.
- ↑ Andrew Eliot of the class of 1762 was simultaneously Butler and Librarian; later Tutor and Fellow of the Corporation. A. P. Peabody, Harvard Graduates Whom I Have Known, 149.
- ↑ In the inventory of “Butterie Utensills” made in 1674 occurs: “3 tables to putt names on.” College Book, i, ‘79. It will be remembered that up to 1654 the college course, after the English model, was only three years in length.
