_Schools and Colleges_
What the common schools of a century or two ago must have been is
indicated by a description of the colleges which will hereafter be
given in this chapter. Many of the school-masters were ignorant, and
in addition were much addicted to the use of intoxicating liquors.
The first of whom we have any trace was Jan Roelandsen, a New York
school-master, who is on record as lying drunk for a month at a time,
and being incorrigibly lazy. He was the first of many. Winthrop, in his
_History of New England_, describes the censuring of Nathaniel Eton, a
school-master, for furnishing insufficient board to his scholars, in
which proceeding his wife testified that the bread and beer was always
free for the boarders to go to. In 1693 a school bill for a couple of
boys of the Lloyd family of Long Island contained the following items:
A bottle of wine for his mistress 10 d.
Wormwood and rubab 6 d.
While the boys took the drugs the school-mistress drank the wine.
Henry Clay's education was in a district school taught in a log cabin
by an intemperate Englishman, and consisted of the merest rudiments.
Peter Cartwright speaks of his school teacher as a Seceder minister
who would get drunk at times. Washington Irving's _Ichabod Crane_,
and Eggleston's _Hoosier School-master_ are at least average pictures
of the country school-masters of an early day. The chorus of the
school-masters seems to have been:
"Let schoolmasters puzzle their brains
With grammar and nonsense and learning,
_Good liquor_ I stoutly maintain
Gives genius a better discerning."
MacMasters describes early college life in 1784 as follows:
"The students lodged in the dormitories and ate at the commons. The
food then partaken of with thankfulness would now be looked upon as
prison fare. At breakfast, which was served at sunrise in summer and at
day-break in winter, there was doled out to each student a small can
of unsettled coffee, a size of biscuit, and a size of butter weighing
generally about an ounce. Dinner was the staple meal, and at this each
student was regaled with a pound of meat. Two days in the week, Monday
and Thursday, the meat was boiled, and, in college language, these
were known as boiling days. On the five remaining days, the meat was
roasted, and to them the nickname of roasting days were fastened. With
the flesh always went potatoes. When boiling days came round, pudding
and cabbage, wild peas and dandelions were added. The only delicacy
to which no stint was applied was the cider, a beverage then fast
supplanting the small beer of the colonial days. This was brought to
the mess in pewter cans which were passed from mouth to mouth, and when
emptied were again replenished. For supper there was a bowl of milk and
a size of bread."
The oldest college in the United States, that of William and Mary, was
founded by the King and Queen of that name, who gave it twenty thousand
acres of land and a penny a pound duty on tobacco exported from
Virginia and Maryland. The assembly also gave it a duty on imported
liquors for its support. This was in 1726, and the proceeds of the tax
were to be devoted to its running expenses and the establishment of
scholarships. Twenty-five years later the same benevolent body enriched
the college with the proceeds of the tax on peddlers. Those who are
inclined to throw stones at the source of these benefactions should
remember that Harvard College has more than once profited by the gains
of an authorized lottery, receiving more than eighteen thousand dollars
from such a source as late as 1805.
In 1752 the rules of William and Mary College required that "spirituous
liquors were to be used in that moderation which became the prudent
and industrious student." From the list were excluded all liquids but
beer, cider, toddy, and spirits and water. In 1798, when the Bishop
of Virginia was president of the college and had apartments in the
building, the English traveler Weld noticed that half a dozen or more
of the students dined at his table one day when he was there. "Some
were without shoes and stockings, others without coats. During the meal
they constantly rose to help themselves from the sideboard."
William and Mary College, during the days of Jefferson and Monroe,
was "a riot of pleasure and power, a jumble of royalist splendor and
patriotic fervor, an awe of learning, and indulgence of _vice_." Thomas
Jefferson, the most eminent graduate of the college, and its cordial
friend, in advanced life remembered the "regular annual riot and
battles between the students and the town boys;" and bore testimony
to other greater evils. From one source and another have come down to
us complaints that the college was neither a college, nor a grammar
school, nor an Indian hospital; that its teachers squabbled among
themselves to the detriment of their academic work; and that some
of the professors sent out by the bishops of London were drunken,
quarrelsome, and ignorant of the subjects they professed to teach.
The president, representing the bishop, might have brought charges
against the clergy for their flagrant drunkenness but he refrained,
being himself a notorious drunkard. Farquier, representative of the
crown, was the most finished gentleman Virginia had known, and also
the most demoralizing. He introduced a passion for high play that
ruined many a fine old family, encouraged hard drinking and a mania for
racing, delighted in having the clergy and favored students join him in
his all-night revels.
Commencement at Harvard in Old New England days was a fête indeed; a
fête so important as to be attended by giant expenditures and sinful
extravagance. Indeed, so early as 1722 in its history, an act was
passed "that henceforth no preparation nor provision of either Plumb
Cake, or Roasted, Boyled or Baked Meats or Pyes of any kind shall be
made by any Commencer," and that "no such have any distilled liquors
in his Chamber or any composition therewith," under penalty of twenty
shillings or forfeiture of the said provisions. Five years later
several acts were passed "for preventing the Excesses, Immoralities and
Disorders of the Commencements," by way of enforcing the foregoing act.
These, with a simplicity of conclusion which brings a smile, declare
that "if any who now doe or hereafter shall stand for their degrees,
presume to doe anything contrary to the said Act or goe about to evade
it by Plain Cake," they shall forfeit the honors of the college.
In the latter part of the eighteenth century the Yale College butler
held his buttery in the ground floor, front corner room, of South
Middle College, and sold cider, metheglin, strong beer, together
with loaf sugar, etc., to the students. Dr. Lyman Beecher, in his
autobiography, says of old Doctor Dwight, then president of the
college: "Before he came college was in a most ungodly state.... Wine
and liquor were kept in many rooms, intemperance, profanity, gambling,
and licentiousness were common."
John Bacon, afterwards United States Senator, and Chief Justice of New
Hampshire, sailed from Boston for Princeton College September 10,
1751. In his diary he states his outfit.
5 qts West India rum 5 17 6
1 qr. lb. Tea, 12
1 doz. fowls, 2 10
2 lbs. loaf sugar, 16
1 doz-8 lemons, 1 9
3 lbs. butter, 12
In a book published in 1764 describing student life at Princeton, it is
stated that "the general table drink is beer or cider."
Washington Irving, in _Salmagundi_, described seeing two students
at the tavern at Princeton who got drunk and cursed the professors.
Madison was a _poler_ at Princeton, and although the five o'clock
horn was a sovereign preventive of midnight revelry, Madison was
occasionally found around the blazing logs of the Nassau Inn, when
tankards of ale and puffs at the long stemmed pipes punctuated the
students' songs.
James Buchanan at Dickinson was the typical _bad boy_. Immorality was
rampant among the students, sobriety and books were ridiculed. Buchanan
became a leader in debauchery, although his physique enabled him at
the same time to maintain a high rank in scholarship. The faculty chose
him as a scapegoat, and he was expelled.
Benny Havens, the hero of the West Point song, for many years sold
liquor illicitly to the cadets. The foundation of Vassar College was
the fortune acquired by Matthew Vassar as a brewer.