“At a period when Latin was the common instrument of communication among the learned, and the official language of statesmen, great attention was naturally paid to this branch of education.  Accordingly, ‘to speak true Latin, both in prose and verse,’ was made an essential requisite for admission.  Among the ’Laws and Liberties’ of the College we also find the following:  ’The scholars shall never use their mother tongue, except that, in public exercises of oratory or such like, they be called to make them in English.’  This law appears upon the records of the College in the Latin as well as in the English language.  The terms in the former are indeed less restrictive and more practical:  ’Scholares vernacula lingua, intra Collegii limites, nullo pretextu utentur.’  There is reason to believe that those educated at the College, and destined for the learned professions, acquired an adequate acquaintance with the Latin, and those destined to become divines, with the Greek and Hebrew.  In other respects, although the sphere of instruction was limited, it was sufficient for the age and country, and amply supplied all their purposes and wants.”  —­Vol.  I. pp. 193, 194.

By the laws of 1734, the undergraduates were required to “declaim publicly in the hall, in one of the three learned languages; and in no other without leave or direction from the President.”  The observance of this rule seems to have been first laid aside, when, “at an Overseers’ meeting at the College, April 27th, 1756, John Vassall, Jonathan Allen, Tristram Gilman, Thomas Toppan, Edward Walker, Samuel Barrett, presented themselves before the Board, and pronounced, in the respective characters assigned them, a dialogue in the English tongue, translated from Castalio, and then withdrew,”—­Peirce’s Hist.  Harv.  Univ., p. 240.

The first English Oration was spoken by Mr. Jedediah Huntington in the year 1763, and the first English Poem by Mr. John Davis in 1781.

In reference to this subject, as connected with Yale College, President Wholsey remarks, in his Historical Discourse:—­

“With regard to practice in the learned languages, particularly the Latin, it is prescribed that ’no scholar shall use the English tongue in the College with his fellow-scholars, unless he be called to a public exercise proper to be attended in the English tongue, but scholars in their chambers, and when they are together, shall talk Latin.’”—­p. 59.

“The fluent use of Latin was acquired by the great body of the students; nay, certain phrases were caught up by the very cooks in the kitchen.  Yet it cannot be said that elegant Latin was either spoken or written.  There was not, it would appear, much practice in writing this language, except on the part of those who were candidates for Berkeleian prizes.  And the extant specimens of Latin discourses written by the officers of the College in the past century are not eminently Ciceronian in their style.  The speaking of Latin, which was kept up as the College dialect in rendering excuses for absences, in syllogistic disputes, and in much of the intercourse between the officers and students, became nearly extinct about the time of Dr. Dwight’s accession.  And at the same period syllogistic disputes as distinguished from forensic seem to have entirely ceased.”—­p. 62.