In the year 1825, it received a third loan of arms, and was again reorganized, admitting the members of all the classes to its ranks.  From this period until the year 1834, very great interest was manifested in it; but a rebellion having broken out at that time among the students, and the guns of the company having been considerably damaged by being thrown from the windows of the armory, which was then in University Hall, the company was disbanded, and the arms were returned to the State.

The feelings with which it was regarded by the students generally cannot be better shown than by quoting from some of the publications in which reference is made to it.  “Many are the grave discussions and entry caucuses,” says a writer in the Harvard Register, published in 1828, “to determine what favored few are to be graced with the sash and epaulets, and march as leaders in the martial band.  Whilst these important canvassings are going on, it behooves even the humblest and meekest to beware how he buttons his coat, or stiffens himself to a perpendicular, lest he be more than suspected of aspiring to some military capacity.  But the Harvard Washington Corps must not be passed over without further notice.  Who can tell what eagerness fills its ranks on an exhibition-day? with what spirit and bounding step the glorious phalanx wheels into the College yard? with what exultation they mark their banner, as it comes floating on the breeze from Holworthy?  And ah! who cannot tell how this spirit expires, this exultation goes out, when the clerk calls again and again for the assessments.”—­p. 378.

A college poet has thus immortalized this distinguished band:—­

 “But see where yonder light-armed ranks advance!—­
  Their colors gleaming in the noonday glance,
  Their steps symphonious with the drum’s deep notes,
  While high the buoyant, breeze-borne banner floats! 
  O, let not allied hosts yon band deride! 
  ’T is Harvard Corps, our bulwark and our pride! 
  Mark, how like one great whole, instinct with life,
  They seem to woo the dangers of the strife! 
  Who would not brave the heat, the dust, the rain,
  To march the leader of that valiant train?”
    Harvard Register, p. 235.

Another has sung its requiem in the following strain:—­

 “That martial band, ’neath waving stripes and stars
  Inscribed alike to Mercury and Mars,
  Those gallant warriors in their dread array,
  Who shook these halls,—­O where, alas! are they? 
  Gone! gone! and never to our ears shall come
  The sounds of fife and spirit-stirring drum;
  That war-worn banner slumbers in the dust,
  Those bristling arms are dim with gathering rust;
  That crested helm, that glittering sword, that plume,
  Are laid to rest in reckless faction’s tomb.”
    Winslow’s Class Poem, 1835.

HAT FELLOW-COMMONER.  At the University of Cambridge, Eng., the popular name given to a baronet, the eldest son of a baronet, or the younger son of a nobleman.  A Hat Fellow-Commoner wears the gown of a Fellow-Commoner, with a hat instead of the velvet cap with metallic tassel which a Fellow-Commoner wears, and is admitted to the degree of M.A. after two years’ residence.