Provided also, That They exercise themselves in the use of the Fire-lock in the Play-place only, and That, at no other time, but after Evening Prayers.
Provided also, That they behave themselves orderly in their Exercise, & Particularly, That They explode not any of their Fire-Locks in the College Yard, or Elsewhere (Except Vollies in the Field of Exercise).
Provided also, That after their Exercise, They absolutely clear the College of all their Fire-Arms, so that if any fire-lock be found in any Chamber of the College in the Evening or on the next Day, before Evening Prayers, And also if any Breach be made upon any one of the above Articles, Then the Liberty above granted, of Exercising the Fire-lock, shall be immediately prohibited to Them.[1]
Apparently we have here the germination of the first military company at Harvard. Ten years later we find it fully developed. As all nomenclature was then of classical elegance, it was known as the Marti-Mercurian Band—which was, after all, much better than the “Harvard Blues” or the “Langdon Light Infantry”—and its flag, long preserved but now perished, bore the motto “Tam Marti Quam Mercurio.” In 1769 its cap-
- ↑ Faculty Records, April 7, 1759 Seven years later, the military drill was influencing college life considerably. The mutineers in the Great Butter Rebellion of 1766 state: “We formed ourselves into regular Ranks, & marched in a Body to his [The President’s] House.”
in 1787, taking in the sites of the present Stoughton and Tolworthy. After the erection of these buildings and the opening of Cambridge Street, early in the nineteenth century, the “Delta” (now occupied by Memorial Hall) came into use. Here an “open air gymnasium” was tried in 1880, and hard by, in 1860, the first gymnasium. building was erected. Holmes Field and the new gymnasium, in turn, continued the tradition of an authorized “play-place” within a few hundred feet to the north of the Yard. At all events, Harvard has had a recognized athletic field for over two centuries. See Harvard Alumni Bulletin, xviii, 559; Willard, Memories of Youth and Manhood, i, 316; Harvard Book, ii, 186.
