corded to the credit of President Quincy, the ablest man of affairs and the greatest administrator Harvard had ever known, that among his multitudinous reforms he made earnest efforts to improve the dignity and prestige of Commons. He even imported from England a complete set of table silver embossed with the college seal, and a service of china-ware ornamented with views of the various college buildings.[1]
But such superficial amenities came too late in the life of a waning institution. Self-respecting students withdrew more and more to the peace and plenty of the private boarding-houses. Commons shrank into two rooms, and finally descended into the basement next the kitchen. There they were abandoned, as has been told, to the ingenious but futile experimentation of a private concessionnaire. “Under new management” they failed to regain their old importance, and became virtually nothing but one of the numerous eating-places of the town. At length in their gloomy cavern they quietly expired during the spring of 1849, with the well-justified epitaph, pronounced by President Sparks—“It is improbable that the Commons will again be revived.”[2]
- ↑ During the exigencies of the Civil War this silver was sold at auction. A few of the spoons are preserved among the college plate, and for the privilege of making the accompanying illustration I am indebted to the unfailing courtesy of Mr. Charles F. Mason, Bursar. For an amusing charge by Joseph H. Choate that President Eliot had annexed some spoons, see Harv. Alumni Bulletin, xvii, 114.
- ↑ Annual Report of the President, 1849. Eight years later the Faculty
