Nevertheless, so strong was the instinct for soldiering already mentioned, that no sooner was the College started than the students began to waive their rights and volunteer to “train.” Such an evasion was far from agreeable to their preceptors, who decreed, among the very first laws of the College (1642): “None shall, under any pretence whatever, frequent the company and society of such men as lead an ungirt and dissolute life. Neither shall any without license of the Overseers of the Colledge bee of the [Ancient and Honorable] Artillery or traine-Band.” This oblique yet masterly thrust, perhaps the first rebuke endured by an organization long-suffering but notoriously tough, was followed eight years later by an equally effective piece of sarcasm. The law was now revised to read: “Neither shall any schollar exercise himself in any Military band, unlesse of knowne gravity and of approoved, sober and vertuous conversation, and that with leave of the President and his Tutor.”
Such a qualification evidently amounted (as was probably intended) to a total prohibition, since for a century after Harvard was founded there is no hint of an undergraduate joining any company or showing any practical interest in military affairs. The only exception occurs, rather strangely, at the very beginning of the college annals—and is not really an exception at all, since the
