75. Strict Rules for College Students
BY HARVARD COLLEGE (1660)[248]
1. IT is hereby ordered that the president and fellows of
Harvard College have the power to punish all misdeeds of the
young men in their college. They are to use their best
judgment and punish by fines or whipping in the hall publicly,
as the nature of the offence shall call for.
2. No student shall live or board in the family or private house
of any person in Cambridge without permission from the
president and his teachers. And if any shall have leave to do
so, yet they shall attend all college exercises both for religion
and schooling.
They shall also be under college rules, and do as others ought
to do. In case any student shall be and live in town out of the
college grounds, more than one month or several times,
without permission, he shall afterwards be looked upon as no
member of the college.
3. Former orders have not prevented unnecessary damage to
the college, by the roughness and carelessness of certain
students. Yet for their benefit a great amount of money has
been spent on these things.
It is therefore ordered that hereafter all possible care shall be
taken to prevent such injury to things. And when any damage
shall be found done to any study room or other room used, the
person or persons living in it shall pay for this.
And where any damage shall be done to any part of the
college building (except by the act of God), this shall be made
good or paid for by all the students
living in the college at the time when such damage shall be done or
found to be done. This means damage to any empty room, the college
fences, pump, bell, clock, etc.
[249]
But if the person or persons that did these things be
discovered, he or they shall make good the damage. He or
they shall also be in danger of further punishment and fines
for such misconduct.
If any student shall take any study room for his use he shall
pay the rent of it for a whole year, whether he live in it so
long or not. He shall be under promise to leave the room in as
good condition as he found it when he first came into it.
Parents are greatly annoyed by reason of ill-treatment put upon
their children when they first come to
college.[250] This is because the older
students send them upon their own private errands. For the future great
care shall be taken to prevent this same thing.
All doings of this kind shall be severely punished, by a fine
paid by such persons as shall do so. Or they shall receive
bodily punishment if it is considered best.
4. M—, H—, and W— were expelled from college and their names
cut out of the tables in the dining room. By order of the president of
the college, this was done before all the fellows interested. It was
because of the disorder and bad actions of these three young men toward
Andrew Belcher. They killed Grandma Sell's dog and stole ropes with
which to hang him. They hung him upon a sign-post at night, as one of
them afterwards confessed before the college authorities and before his
companions. And at the time it was not denied in any way; but two of the
students afterwards got
the third one to say that after all what he had related was not
true. Many great lies were told by all of them, and especially
by one. And there were many reasons for the belief that they
committed these crimes.
[[248]]
Harvard College was for more than a century the
only college in the English Colonies.
[[249]]
Until two centuries later the cost of broken
windows was assessed on all the students.
[[250]]
This shows that hazing existed two hundred and forty
years ago.
