CHAPEL, PAST AND PRESENT

In consideration of the present day liberality in regard to attendance at morning prayers it is interesting to look back over the struggles and student rebellions which have occurred concerning the matter of Chapel attendance in the last two hundred years. At first religious services were held by each class in its tutor's room; afterwards all students came together in Commons Hall or the library, and later an apartment in the old Harvard Hall was used as a chapel. In 1744 Holden Chapel was built and for two years served as a place of worship, until the new Harvard Hall was erected. The latter continued to be used for devotional exercises until University Hall was built in 1814. Here divine service was performed for 44 years, until 1858, when Appleton Chapel was erected, which has been the College Chapel to the present time.

A peculiar feature of morning prayer during the early period of Harvard's history was that after the exercises the President was accustomed to hear public confessions from the students in the presence of all the classes and officers and to administer discipline which consisted of degradation, admonition, or expulsion, according to the nature of the offence. Many instances of humiliating acknowledgement of error and sin are recorded. In the diary of President Leavitt is found the following extract: "November 4, 1712, A-- was publicly admonished in the College Hall, and there confessed his sinful excess, and his enormous profanation of the Holy Name of Almighty God."

Fines for Absence from Prayers.

Morning prayers at this time were held at 6 o'clock and attendance upon them was enforced by requiring the payment of money for any delinquency. "If a student went to the place of public worship before the ringing of the second bell, he was fined not exceeding one shilling; if he was guilty of disorderly conduct immediately after or before prayers, or of irreverance during the service, he was fined a sum not exceeding five shillings, and if he walked on the common or the streets or fields of the town of Cambridge on the Lord's day he was fined not exceeding three shillings or was admonished, degraded, suspended, or rusticated, according to the aggravation of the offence."

Immeiately after morning prayers the students proceeded to their recitations before breakfast, which was served at 7.30 o'clock. This order of exercises was justified on the ground that it was important that the undergraduates should not only be roused from their beds, but called to some intellectual exertion at an early hour; and that a recitation after rising in the morning was the best security for the proper employment of the previous evening.

In 1768 a strenuous outbreak occurred. It had been the custom for students to offer excuse for absence from chapel. The tutors decided no longer to admit such excuses. This caused great indignation among the students, who met in a body and declared the rule "unconstitutional." Several windows were broken and several suspected students expelled. At this the three lower classes went to the President declaring that they would leave College. The Seniors applied for recommendation to another college. The Overseers of the College, however, held a meeting, and by confirming the action of the President and tutors and announcing their resolution to support the subordinate government of the College, soon brought the scholars to a sense of their fault and a stop was put to the revolt.

Opposition to Routine.

Chapel service was conducted by professors and tutors, who followed one another in the order of seniority, each accupying one week. Inasmuch as these devotional exercises were frequently performed in an indifferent and perfunctory manner by those who had little or no interest in them they were far from edifying, and often distasteful to the students. Being obliged to rise before daylight, to go through the winter's storms and stand shivering in a cold room, listening to what seemed to be mere routine, even in the opinion of those who conducted it, and then going to recitations before they had breakfasted, it is not surprising that a spirit of discontent was created which manifested itself in various disorders. They disfigured Harvard Hall, blew the bell to pieces with gunpowder, fastened up the doors, and on one occasion a hog's head was found on the bible. Before one of the religious services some "pull-crackers" were fastened to the lids of the Bible, which, on being opened, caused them to explode with a loud noise.

It became a common occurrence to steal the Bible and in November 1822 a great disturbance was made by the Juniors because the Tutor who officiated detained them too long. April 1823, another uprising took place among the Seniors. Yet it was not for four years after this that it was voted, in order to secure greater respect for the service, that, in the absence of the President, prayers should be performed by the Professor of Divinity.

Even after this disturbances occasionally occurred at prayers, those who thought they had any grievances taking advantage of such time to resent them. Compulsory attendance upon religious exercises seemed to many to justify their using every means to evade or disregard them. Thus the bell was turned up and filled with water which froze at night: the rope on which it was hung was cut and the Bible was stolen from the pulpit.

Students Backed Individual.

Between 1830 and 1850 several minor outbreaks took place which were immediately put down. In 1834, however, a vebellion arose which became a matter of great public notoriety. As it was not directly concerned with the history of morning prayers it will not be repeated here. Arising from the refusal of one man to obey his master it finally grew to a great disturbance which involved almost the whole University. It illustrated well how the whole student body used to stand behind a man in trouble with the authorities, however fair his punishment might be.

Gradually, however, as chapel regulations became less harsh, disturbances from this cause became less frequent and less frequent. New that chapel is entirely voluntary a wholesome respect and reverence for the short services which starts in marked contrast to the foot shufillings and speechings which used to drown out the words of the preacher, has grown up among the undergraduates