“This is certainly a very remarkable document, one which it requires some faith to look on as originating in this land of universal suffrage, in the same century with the Declaration of Independence.  He who had been moulded and reduced into shape by such a system might soon become expert in the punctilios of the court of Louis the Fourteenth.

“This system, however, had more tenacity of life than might be supposed.  In 1800 we still find it laid down as the Senior’s duty to inspect the manners and customs of the lower classes, and especially of the Freshmen; and as the duty of the latter to do any proper errand, not only for the authorities of the College, but also, within the limits of one mile, for Resident Graduates and for the two upper classes.  By degrees the old usage sank down so far, that what the laws permitted was frequently abused for the purpose of playing tricks upon the inexperienced Freshmen; and then all evidence of its ever having been current disappeared from the College code.  The Freshmen were formally exempted from the duty of running upon errands in 1804.”—­pp. 54-56.

Among the “Laws of Yale College,” published in 1774, appears the following regulation:  “Every Freshman is obliged to do any proper Errand or Message, required of him by any one in an upper class, which if he shall refuse to do, he shall be punished.  Provided that in Study Time no Graduate may send a Freshman out of College Yard, or an Undergraduate send him anywhere at all without Liberty first obtained of the President or Tutor.”—­pp. 14, 15.

In a copy of the “Laws” of the above date, which formerly belonged to Amasa Paine, who entered the Freshman Class at Yale in 1781, is to be found a note in pencil appended to the above regulation, in these words:  “This Law was annulled when Dr. [Matthew] Marvin, Dr. M.J.  Lyman, John D. Dickinson, William Bradley, and Amasa Paine were classmates, and [they] claimed the Honor of abolishing it.”  The first three were graduated at Yale in the class of 1785; Bradley was graduated at the same college in 1784 and Paine, after spending three years at Yale, was graduated at Harvard College in the class of 1785.

As a part of college discipline, the upper classes were sometimes deprived of the privilege of employing the services of Freshmen.  The laws on this subject were these:—­

“If any Scholar shall write or publish any scandalous Libel about the President, a Fellow, Professor, or Tutor, or shall treat any one of them with any reproachful or reviling Language, or behave obstinately, refractorily, or contemptuously towards either of them, or be guilty of any Kind of Contempt, he may be punished by Fine, Admonition, be deprived the Liberty of sending Freshmen for a Time; by Suspension from all the Privileges of College; or Expulsion, according as the Nature and Aggravation of the Crime may require.”