President Dunster’s Quadriennium Memoir
Introduction
THE following document in the Harvard University Archives, signed by President Dunster and at least partly in his handwriting, has hitherto escaped the notice of historians of Harvard University, although it was imperfectly printed twenty-five years ago.
The memoir is written on a sheet of coarse paper measuring 12 × 15 inches, folded to make a little book of eight pages, and stitched. Dunster’s own memoir is on pages 1–4. The copy of Norris’s report on Oxford occupies page 5. Pages 6 and 7 are blank and uncut. Page 8, the back cover, bears the endorsement Quadriennium, probably in Dunster’s hand, followed by one or two words which were erased with a pen, or rubbed out by wear.
The memorial was certainly drawn up sometime in the last years of President Dunster’s administration, and probably may be dated not long before Commencement, 1654. In several respects the document is important. It clears up once and for all the mystery of the double Harvard Commencement of 1653. It emphasizes the fact that Harvard College was intended by her founders to be a college in the English university tradition, observing, as far as limited means and colonial conditions would permit, the scholastic standards of Oxford and Cambridge. It throws no small light on the organization of the University of Cambridge in the early seventeenth century. And, finally, it shows the origin of the “class,” which has been a scholastic and a social unit in American colleges from 1640 to the present day.
The Harvard curriculum for the A.B. described in New Englands First Fruits (1643) is a three-year course. Those who entered Freshmen in the summer or fall of 1638 under Nathaniel Eaton, were dispersed at the beginning of the academic year 1639–40 when that Orbilius Plagosus was dismissed. Henry Dunster, shortly after he was elected president in August, 1640, recalled to Cambridge such of Eaton’s former pupils as were not beyond recall; and these were voted their bachelor’s degrees at the first Harvard Commencement, in September, 1642. Those who entered college with the new president were graduated in 1643; and so on.
In 1653, there came a break. The successive catalogues of graduates record two graduating classes that year: the one of nine students, on August 9, and the other of eight, on August 10. Between the two lists of names the earliest Triennial Catalogue of Graduates, that of 1674, inserts this statement:
Qui ad secundum gradum admissi fuere 1655:
Die sequente vero baccalaurei, ad secundum gradum admissi ut moris est, 1656.
This formula, with minor variations, was repeated in all the Latin Triennial Catalogues down to the last, that of 1875, and in the Latin Quinquennials of 1880 and 1885.
The graduates of 1653 who took the degree of Bachelor of Arts 9 August received that of Master of Arts in 165 5; the other portion of the class, who took the Bachelor’s degree 10 August, were required, under a law which remained in force until 1873, to wait three years before taking the Master’s degree.
This statement has been repeated literally in every subsequent Quinquennial, including that of 1930, notwithstanding the fact that our late associate William Coolidge Lane pointed out in 1914 that the graduates of 1653 were not portions of the same class, but two separate and distinct classes; and that the real reason for the break was the adoption of a four-year course for the bachelor’s degree.
What happened was this. President Dunster, eager to have Harvard College adopt the same standards as the University of Cambridge, got through the Corporation and Overseers an amendment to the Laws of 1642 (quoted in the first paragraph of his manuscript), providing that “none shall expect” his A.B. “until he hath been four whole years [quadriennium] in the College.” It may be inferred that this law was passed before Commencement, 1652. In order to respect vested rights, and to mitigate the hardship to the students and the additional expense to their parents, the Corporation put the new law into effect in a manner that avoided trouble for two years, but brought more of it in the end. The class which entered in the summer and fall of 1649, and would ordinarily have graduated in 1652, were kept in college one year longer, and took their bachelor’s degrees on August 9, 1653; but were allowed to take their master’s degrees in 1655.
President Chauncy, who succeeded President Dunster in November, 1654, maintained the four-year statute and braved a similar student strike. Increase Mather, of the Class of 1656, wrote in his autobiography:
My standing in ye Colledge was such, as yt according to ye vsual custome, I should this year [1655] have proceeded Bachelor of Arts. But ye pr[e]sident being desirous to keep ye students as long in ye Colledge as might be, & some other reasons occurring, or class (& some others also) were not suffered to Commence till ye year after, wch was a great trouble to many of ye overseers of ye Colledge, & occasioned (as I rem[em]b[e]r) no less yn 17 of ye scholars to remove from ye Colledge: but my Father (tho troubled at wt was done) was not willing that I should take my Name out of ye Colledge Register (as some of my standing had done) and I submitted to my Fathers pleasure in it.
In ye year 1656 I . . . had my first degree.
The Corporation records for these years were entered in College Book II, which was destroyed in the fire of 1764, and of which only a few entries copied into other college records, and a manuscript index by President Wadsworth, survive. In Wadsworth’s index is the entry: “first Degree (An. 1654) deni’d to those of 3 years standing.”
Of even more interest than this solution of a local problem in Harvard College, is the light thrown by Dunster on the practices of his mother university. One may search in vain the histories of the University of Cambridge and of her several colleges for so precise an account of the term-to-term progress of the undergraduates as Dunster gives, or for the name Sophomori, by which he says that the second-year men were called.
According to the Elizabethan Statutes of the University of Cambridge, a printed copy of which Dunster had at hand as he wrote, the university had three terms that could be counted for residence, and a fourth, the vacation term, which was not so counted:
- 1. Michaelmas term, October 10 to December 16.
- 2. Hilary term, January 13 to the decade before Easter.
- 3. Easter term, eleventh day after Easter to the Friday after Commencement, which was held on the first Tuesday in July.
- 4. Vacation term, “in quo propter intemperiem coeli et pestis atque contagionis pericula” no university exercises were held, lasted from the Friday after the first Tuesday in July to October 10.
The process of taking the bachelor’s degree at Cambridge in Dunster’s time (and for over two centuries thereafter) was exceedingly complicated. In January of his last Hilary term the Senior Sophister was (1) examined “privately” in college, and, if approved by his college authorities, (2) presented to the university authorities as a candidate; (3) examined orally by the proctors, “posers,” and regent masters of arts. If approved, he (4) subscribed to the “Three Articles” and (5) was presented, with a proper supplicat, to a Congregation of the University in which, if the grace were granted, he was admitted by the vice-chancellor ad respondendum Quaestioni. He was now a “questionist,” a B.A. to all intents and purposes; but in accordance with a custom derived from the Roman-law practice of investiture, he was not a complete B.A. until he had demonstrated his ability. This he did by (6) “replying to the question,” which meant answering a few perfunctory queries out of Aristotle’s Prior Analytics, on some day before Ash Wednesday, and by (7) “determining,” which meant stare in quadragesima (to stand in Lent) in the Public Schools in order to take part in certain formal debates, and engage in others, if challenged. Finally, (8) at the “Latter Act” (or “Bachelors’ Commencement” or “Second Tripos Day”) on the Thursday before Palm Sunday, he was pronounced by the Senior Proctor “to have determined, and actually to be Bachelor of Arts.”
Since all these exercises for the B.A. took place in Hilary term, and a residence of twelve non-vacation terms was required, the student who wished to take his baccalaureate in the minimum time would enter the university during Easter term. Students were allowed to “count” this term provided they matriculated before the end of it, i.e., before the second week in July; and they were also permitted to “count” the Hilary term in which they took the degree four years later.
Thus, Dunster himself matriculated in Easter term, 1627, and took his B.A. in Hilary term, 1630/31. But if a student neglected to matriculate before the end of Easter term, he would have only eleven, not twelve terms to his credit the fourth January following, and could not take his B.A. until his fifth year. Thus, as Dunster notes, one Orlando Elliott entered Magdalene College in October, 1627, probably beginning his actual studies at the same time with Dunster; but, being unable to “count” the previous Easter term, he was too late to graduate with the men of Dunster’s grex (of his class, we should say). He therefore became “senior brother” of the next class, most of whom entered in Easter term, 1628, and graduated B.A. in 1631/32. John Harvard’s university career was almost contemporaneous with Elliott’s. Admitted to Emmanuel College in December, 1627, he obtained his B.A. in 1631/32.
Dunster’s memorial further reveals that members of the four “years” at Cambridge in his time, counting from the beginning of Easter term in each instance, were known as Freshmen, Sophomores, Junior Sophisters, and Senior Sophisters. Except that the two last have by ellipsis become Juniors and Seniors, these have remained the names of the four undergraduate classes in American colleges and universities since Harvard adopted the four-year course. The term “Sophister” (the English rendering of sophista) goes back to an examination in logic at the University of Paris in the twelfth century, which it was necessary for the undergraduate to pass before he was allowed to engage in the sophismata or disputations in the Public Schools of the University.
The term “Sophomore” for the second-year students was just coming into common use in Dunster’s day.
The Sophomore, according to Dunster, was not allowed inside the Sophisters’ School. This was one of the Public Schools, which were simply rooms in the Old Schools Quadrangle, now incorporated in the University Library.
Henry Dunster’s signature in the Subscription Book, Cambridge, when taking his A.B. degree, in grege suo
Although the four “years” of Freshman, Sophomore, Junior Sophister, and Senior Sophister gave their names to the four “classes” of Harvard and all later American universities, the American “class” is more nearly derived from another group mentioned twice in Dunster’s document. The grex (flock) included the men of the same “year” in the same college. Most of the formalities for the B.A. were performed together by the grex, led by some fellow of their college, who was called their “father.” Together they subscribed their names to the “Three Articles,” swearing to support certain canons of the church, in the Subscription Book. This book is still preserved in the University Registry, where the signatures of Henry Dunster and his grex may be found. The grex was then presented to the vice-chancellor, in order to be admitted ad respondendum Quaestioni; and after that ceremony, but before Ash Wednesday, each grex was solemnly conducted into the Public Schools by one of the college tutors, who asked each member a simple question out of Aristotle’s Prior Analytics. Three years later, when students returned to Cambridge to perform the required exercises for the M.A., the grex was again the unit. It will be seen that the grex much more nearly corresponds, both quantitatively and organically, to the Harvard classis or class, than does the “year.” But, as Harvard College was also a microcosm of a university, it was natural to apply to its four classes the names of the four Cambridge years.
S. E. Morison
President Dunster’s Quadriennium Memoir, 1654
QUICUNQUE Scholaris probatione habitâ poterit sacras utriusque Instrumenti Scripturas de Textu Originali Latinè interpretari, et Logicè resolvere, fueritque Naturalis et Moralis Philosophiæ principijs imbutus, vitáque et moribus inculpatus, et publicis quibusvis Comitijs
[I]
[Translation]
EVERY scholar that on proof is found able to read the original of the Old and New Testament into the Latin tongue, and to resolve them logically, and is instructed in the principles of natural and moral philosophy, withal being of honest life and conversation, and at any Public Act
[I]
quàm temporis interstitium postulat, quo illi nos preoccupant,
De hac Positione si quis dubitet, quæ subscripta sunt, legat.
Mos Academiæ Cantabrigiensis quatenus respicit tempus studentium, qui primum in Artibus gradum suscipiunt, est hujusmodi.
Recentes sint admissi Solstitio æstivo 1627 termino (uti dicunt) Paschali, duodecim terminos deinceps ante Baccalaureatum sic complebunt. 1m terminum Paschalem, in quo admissi fuerint qui durat ad Comitia publica sub initio Julij.
Orditurque Annus secundus 1628 quem dum transigunt, Sophomori dicuntur, nec adhuc intra interiora Sophistarum Scholæ repagula illis fas erit ingredi.
[Translation]
in which we look after them
If any one hath doubt respecting this position, let him read what followeth.
The custom of the University of Cambridge, in so far as it looketh to the time of studies of those who take the First Degree in Arts, is of this kind:
Supposing that Freshmen be admitted at the summer solstice in the so-called Easter term; they will complete twelve terms in order before their Baccalaureate, thus. The 1st is the Easter term in which they were admitted, and which endureth until the Public Act immediately after the beginning of July.
Beginneth the second year, 1628, in the course of which they are called Sophomores; nor will it yet be lawful for them to pass the inner bars of the Sophisters’ School.
Ad 3m deinde pervenientes Annum termino Paschali Juniores Sophistæ appellantur, quibus tum primum patent repagula; nondum tamen publicè ibidem disputandi concessa est facultas, Anno 1629.
Ad 4m tandem Annum attingentes post quadragesimam Anno 1630 Seniores Sophistæ coram Moderatore durante termino Paschali Scholis [2] publicis publicè disputant, cùm ante tum etiam post Comitia publica termino Michaelis ad Solstitium usque Brumale.
Post Festum denique Nativitatis termino Hilarij 1631 (computatione Historicâ)
II. Hic Mos legibus et statutis Academicis consentit, quorum Exemplar impressum habeo, et quatenus ad præsens negotium spectat Subscriptum Sequitur
Statuta in admissione Baccalaureorum in Artibus &c.
Primus Annus Rhetoricam docebit, Secundus et tertius Dialecticam, quartus adjungat Philosophiam; et Artium istarum domi, forisque, pro
[Translation]
Thence passing in Easter term to the third year, 1629, they are called Junior Sophisters, to whom then the bars are unfastened for the first time; but the power publicly to dispute therein is not yet conceded.
At length, commencing the fourth year after Lent in the year 1630, the Senior Sophisters during Easter term dispute publicly before the Moderator in the Public Schools, both before and after the Public Act, [and] in Michaelmas term to the winter solstice.
Finally, after the Feast of the Nativity in Hilary term, 1631 (computed historically),
II. This way accordeth with the university laws and statutes, a printed copy of which I hold; and so far as it concerneth the business at hand, the copy followeth:
“Statutes for the Admission of Bachelor of Arts, etc. The first year shall teach Rhetoric, the second and third Dialectic, the fourth addeth
ratione temporis quisque sit Auditor.
III. Prædictæ Propositionis
Supplicat Reverentijs vestris A:B:, ut duodecim termini completi in quibus usitatas Lectiones audiuerit (licèt non omnino secundum formam statuti) unà cum omnibus Disputationibus Declamationibus cæterisque exercitijs per statuta Regia requisitis sufficiant ei ad respondendum quæstioni.
IIII. Demonstratur 4to prædicta propositio
[Translation]
Philosophy; and of those Arts let everyone be auditor at home and abroad,
III. The truth of the aforesaid proposition
“A.B. supplicates Your Reverences that, the twelve terms completed, in which he has heard the accustomed lectures (even if not absolutely according to the form of the statute), together with all the disputations, declamations, and other exercises required by the royal statutes, suffice him to Reply to the Question.”
IV. Fourthly, the aforesaid proposition
Scholares ante Baccalaureatum in Academiâ manent aut per Integrum Biennium tantum cum supplemento aliquot mensium; aut Integrum triennium cum prædicto Supplemento. At qd non per biennium tantum 1mus est in consess[torn]
V. Denique aut Studentes integrum triennium cum Supplemento in Collegio degunt, aut Scholares quinque Annorum,
VI. Postremò igitur luculentissime et absque omni dubio constat Exemplo Historico, v. gr.
[Translation]
or the absurd, thus: scholars reside in the university before their Baccalaureate either for merely a complete biennium with an addition of a few months, or for a complete triennium with the aforesaid addition. But that the mere biennium is not [correct] is, 1st, conceded, and, 2d, [shown by the fact that] if it were, when eight terms were completed they would take the degree in the ninth (as you will find if you add them up), and that nobody claims; ergo [they must reside] during a triennium,
V. Then, too, either the students spend in college a complete triennium with an addition, or the scholars of five years,
VI. Finally this is clearly made manifest and without doubt by an historical example, to wit:
Post Festum Nativitatis durante termino Hilarij fiunt Baccalaurei,
[Translation]
Baker,
After Christmas in Hilary term, Wickley and Welch, etc., are made
Wickley et Welch &c Anno 1628 inchoante. Kelke et Joanes &c, 1629. Russell et Foster 1630. Baker et Dunster &c. 1631. Eliot cum Socijs 1632. Studentes ergo quinque Annorum qui nullum susceperunt gradum, simul in Collegio esse possunt, et per Consequens qui per tempus brevissim[um in] Collegio manent Integrum Triennium, et Septem Menses ad minim[um
Quod autem respicit temporis interstitium, qd absolvunt Baccalaurei, priusquam fiunt Artium Magistri, sub disceptatione apud nullos nostrûm cadit: supervacaneus igitur hâc de re institueretur discursus, primum statutum in admissione Inceptorum in Artibus legendum tantummodo describemus, quod subsequitur.
Baccalaurei Artium Philosophiæ Lectionis, Astronomiæ, Perspectivæ, sive Mathematicalium, quæ in Scholis lecta fuerint, et Græcæ Linguæ, per [4] Triennium ad minus sint assidui Auditores: ídque qd inchoatum
[Translation]
Bachelors at the beginning of the year 1628; Kelke and Jones, etc., in 1629; Russell and Foster in 1630; Baker and Dunster, etc., in 1631; Eliot with his fellows in 1632. Therefore students of five years who have taken no degree, can at the same time remain in college; and consequently those who reside the minimum time in their colleges usually stay for a complete triennium and seven months at least,
Now, that which concerneth the interval of time covered by Bachelors before they are created Masters of Arts, cometh into dispute by none of us: superfluous therefore to begin a discussion of this subject; we shall merely copy off the first statute to be read on the admission of Inceptors in Arts, as followeth:
“Bachelors of Arts shall be assiduous auditors for at least a triennium of such lectures of Philosophy, Astronomy, Perspective, or Mathematics as shall be read in the Schools, and of the Greek tongue too; and whatever
anteà erat, suâ. industriâ perficiant. Intererunt cunctis Magistrarum Artium Disputationibus aperto capite: nec abibunt inde, nisi à Procuratoribus petitâ veniâ. Baccalaureus quisque ter respondebit Magistro obijcienti; bis in sui gregis exercitatione, respondebit, declamabitque semel. In his ubi justum trium Annorum spatium versatus fuerit, et hæc ilium perfecisse constiterit, postquam solenniter productus fuerit, cooptabitur in Magistrorum ordinem
Denique
[Hen. Dunster Har Col: Prœses.]
Agant igitur, Baccalaurei triennium integrum cum mantissa
[Translation]
was incomplete before, they shall by their own efforts perfect. They shall attend, uncovered, all disputations of Masters of Arts, nor shall they absent themselves therefrom, unless by grace of the Proctors. Every Bachelor shall respond thrice to an opponent Master; twice he shall respond and declaim in the exercise of his ‘flock.’ When in these things he hath spent the lawful space of three years, and therein be certified perfect, and after he hath been formally presented, he shall be chosen into the order of Masters.”
Finally, let those university men who differ from me, solve this one question. To wit, whether [students] once admitted Freshmen are accustomed to spend more time before they are created Bachelors, than those once made [Bachelors spend] before they are chosen into the order of Masters? There is nobody (as I aver) but who will reply: “The Bachelors spend less time than the Freshmen.”
[Henry Dunster President of Harvard College]
Let them therefore reflect: Bachelors remain a complete triennium with a so-called mantissa
manent priusquam fiunt M[agist]ri. Quandiu igitur recentes morabuntur priusquam fiunt Baccalaurei?
Quadriennium igitur plus minus in Coll[egio] degere oportet studentes priusquam fierent Baccalaurei, et Integrum septennium priusquam in artibus magistri sint habendi. si (pro more Accademiarum in Angliâ) nostræ admissionis forma retinebitur in veritate prout ips[e mos] est.[5]
[Translation]
It will, therefore, be required that they reside in college a quadriennium more or less before they are made Bachelors, and a complete septennium before they may be received Masters of Arts, if (according to the custom of the universities in England) our form of admission [to degrees] shall truly remain [of the same standard] as the custom is there.
The Order of ye university of Oxford concerning ye degrees of Bachelours & Mrs of art
1. Such as weer admitted into Colledges or Halls weer wthin a few months limitted to bee matriculated & Registred.
Then beeing sophisters yey might dispute (if they weer able) in ye schools and after four years study in Logick & Philosophy wth approbation of the house, & publick triall proceed Bachelours of Art, wherupon yey had allowance to take pupils, & read to ym: But not before.
2. After 3 years study in ye arts upon approbation of ye house & publick examination, ye reading of six lectures in natural & moral Philosophy, & publick disput[ati]ons in ye schooles wth certain Sciors
3. The Eldest sons of noble men or knights (or of Compounders who weer to wear scarlet) or other great persons might be admitted sooner (if ye university pleased) But yt was extraordinary et per concessum.
This was ye usual manner in former times herein.
Testis Mr Ed. Norrice.