tions of a dark and cruel age. We may recall as typical, though not very creditable, that in the person of Charles Chauncy, its second president, Harvard College,
the herald of light and the bearer of love,
blandly agreed that in state trials and the like, “Magistrats may proceede so farr to bodily torments, as racks, hote-irons &c to extracte a conffession.”[1] Bodily torments, to be sure, were ceasing to be a recognized means of discipline in the University. Eaton with his walnut-tree cudgel was but a memory; public whipping was a thing of the past; even ear-boxing was going out of fashion; but the accepted canon in all dealings with the student body was still some form of force. Such words as diplomacy, consideration, sympathy, and tact were as yet unwritten in the bright lexicon of youth—or rather of youth’s instructors, who were anything but bright. Until just before the Revolution they made virtually no effort to win over the collegians by modifying or popularizing the system, or to meet complaints by improving the character of Commons. The beggarly food was set upon the tables; and if, like the unwilling horse led to water, the boys refused to partake of it, the loss was somehow considered their own affair.
- ↑ This was, to be accurate, in 1642, when Chauncy was minister at Scituate. Bradford, “History of Plymouth Plantation,” in Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, 4th Series, iii, 396.
