In this latter part of the nineteenth century when a feeling of independence and equality, that one man is as good as another, is nowhere more clearly shown than in American college life, it is curious to notice in what a hotbed of aristocracy the early days of our colleges were spent.

The Triennial Catalogue of 1776 was the first in which the names of the students of Harvard College appeared in alphabetical order. Before that date the students of each class were arranged in order, according to the rank which their parents held in the social world. A good story is told of a shoe maker's son who came to Harvard. When asked as to what station his father held in life, he replied that he held a position on the bench. The student was accordingly ranked among the upper men of his class.

The severest punishment which could be inflicted, next to expulsion, was the much dreaded degradation. This, we learn, "consisted in placing a student on the list, in consequence of some offence, below the level to which his father's condition would assign him; and thus declared that he had disgraced his family."

The freshman class was arranged in their social order, or placed, to use the technical term, within six or nine months after entering college. The names of the students were written in order of precedence in a large German text, and placed in a conspicuous part of the college buttery (a sort of supplement to the commons) with the names of the other three classes. If a man was expelled, his name was taken off the list; if degraded, his name was put below that of a classmate who held a lower place in the social scale.

Besides the honor attached to a good place in the class, there were some substantial advantages connected with it. The men who stood highest on the list received the best rooms in college and had the right to help themselves first at table in Commons, which was considered a great and probably substantial privilege.

The first arrangement was final, as no changes were made in subsequent years, although it often happened that the relative rank of the parents would vary. The dissatisfaction sure to be caused by such an arrangement and the extreme difficulty of making out the lists in an impartial manner can readily be imagined. The upper and lower members of the class were not so difficult to arrange, but the claims of the members who occupied a middle position, and they were in the majority, were uncertain and hard to settle satisfactorily.

The custom was abolished in all the colleges before the Revolution; at Yale, in 1768, under President Dwight; at Harvard in 1772, although the names did not appear in the catalogue in alphabetical order until 1776.

This punishment of degradation was characteristic of the times and was a relic of English aristocracy brought to this country by our forefathers. If the feelings and sentiments which prompted it had been allowed to increase much harm would have come to our colleges, as we can hardly conceive of the extent to which these social distinctions might have been carried, with their attending discomforts, unless interrupted and destroyed by that spirit of freedom and equality which was the primary cause of the Revolution.