The "Harvard Reminiscences," by Dr. A. P. Peabody, which appears in print this week, is a book that will be of lively interest to every Harvard man. It is full of anecdotes of men and times-times when the institutions and customs of our University were totally different from what they are today. It tells how sixty years ago college men enjoyed few of the comforts we enjoy to-day. There were few rooms whose floors were covered with carpets. Their furniture consisted of a pine bed, a washstand and a few coarse chairs. Men had to rise for a 6 o'clock chapel, from which no cuts were allowed. They had to attend two recitations before they ate breakfast, consisting of folls and coffee. The mornings were spent at recitation till half-past twelve, when dinner was served, which Dr. Peabody describes as "a meal not deficient in quantity, but by no means appetizing to those who had come from neat homes and well-ordered tables." Supper came at six, quite as meagre as the breakfast. From this time, halls and dormitories resounded with singing and frolicking until, at 8 o'clock in winter and 9 o'clock in summer, the study bell rang, when all sounds of merriment ceased and men were supposed to be spending their time studying. The picture Dr. Peabody draws of these early days of college life is peculiarly vivid; he doubtless remembers it as no one else does.
The "Reminiscences" abounds with anecdotes about men, now famous and many of them long since dead-men like Henry Ware, Josiah Quincy, Edward Everett, Ticknor, Felton, Fairfield and Pierce. The book, though made up of fragments as it is, will always be of value and interest to Harvard men. It pictures, as is pictured nowhere else, the different stages of life at our University during the last sixty years, breathing the kindly, gentle spirit of its author, who has always drawn out the good and won the love of all with whom he has come in contact.
["Harvard Reminiscences. By Andrew P. Peabody. Boston: Ticknor and Co. 16mo.]
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