LECTURES WERE RARE

Everyone recited (or went to recitation) three hours a day, out of a book. Lectures as serious modes of instruction were unknown. "Only a lecture" was equivalent to a fraction of a holiday. Misuse of Sunday was discouraged by an exercise in Greek Testament Monday morning. This was regarded reasonable as Greek was required of all for entrance and "ponies" were readily obtained at slight expense. Every class in college had its own prayer-meeting Sunday, usually immediately after church service. When the day of prayer for colleges, a holiday, came around in the spring all the members of the faculty were drafted by some committee and divided among the class meetings, from which they did not escape without making their contribution to the services.

There was a Theological and Missionary Society, the resort of pious intellectuals but shunned by lesser ones because of the notion certainly erroneous that all who belonged were doomed to the pulpit or the cannibal. Although it was admitted then, and years have brought confirmation, that there were some very good and highly respected fellows in it it failed to make religion popular.

Wednesday afternoon was a near-holiday; but first all hands must gather in the Old Chapel ostensibly to hear three or four seniors, as many as could be brought

to time, deliver orations, but really to practice them in addressing an unwilling mob keenly and loudly critical. These eruptions, humorous or exasperating according to point of view, were never suppressed, but ceased only when the occasion ceased.

OFF FOR THE WHITE MOUNTAINS With Professor Hitchcock on State Geological Survey. Standing, E. J. Bartlett, Dana. Seated, Fletcher, Silver, all of 1872.