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March 27, 1847
This day completes the year since I took up my residence in Cambridge: a year of greater anxiety and care and of less intellectual improvement than I remember to have spent. The usual meeting of the Corporation. After the routine business was over, I had made known to the Corporation the entire disappointment I had experienced in the office, its ruinous effect upon my health, and my firm persuasion that I should not be able to hold on. Much concern was expressed. Some encouraging opinions expressed.
Archives call number UAI 15.884, College
Letters, Volume I, Edward Everett, 1846-1847.
Charles G. Loring, to
whom this letter is addressed, was a member of the Corporation.
In
what follows, the idiosyncrasies of capitalization and punctuation are those of
President Everett or his clerk.
Charles G. Loring, Esq.
Cambridge 13 December 1847Dear Sir,
Your requested me some time ago to give you a memorandum of the duties performed by the President. They are so miscellaneous in their nature that I fear I shall not succeed in giving you a just idea of them; but I will make the attempt.
The President is a member of the Overseers and of the Corporation. The amount of duty to be performed in this connection is considerable. You are familiar with one branch of it, and can form a general idea of the other.
The principal duties of the President are those which pertain to his office as head of the College Faculty. He is also nominally the head of the Faculties of the Professional schools; but they scarce ever meet. I called one or two meetings of the Law faculty, shortly after I came here, to administer the discipline required in some painful cases of immorality:- but no stated meetings are held.
As a member of the College Faculty, I attend morning and evening prayers and divine worship on Sundays in the chapel. I have been absent but one morning owing to a mistake of the hour; and but one Evening prayer since I began to attend in the Evening; which was very shortly after my arrival. No part of my duty separates me so much from society or confines me so much at Cambridge; but of none is the good effect so apparent. When I came here, the condition of things in this respect was deplorable. The improvement has been great, & there is room for much more.
The Books of the Faculty are principally kept at the President’s office – they are,
- The Record of admissions, in which the name of every student entering is recorded with his age, place of residence, name of his last Instructor, and of his Parent or Guardian. When his connexion with the College closes, by Graduation or otherwise, that fact is also entered.
- The Subscription Book, in which those admitted sign their names to an obligation to obey the Laws, subjoining also a memorandum of their: age, parentage, residence, &.
- The book of weekly returns. This is an album, into which are posted the weekly returns made by each officer of absences and tardiness. They are brought by the Instructors on Monday Evenings to the President’s office and posted into the Album by his clerk – Before my time they were kept in loose files and consequently it was very difficult to refer to them. This little mechanical improvement has considerably lightened the labors of my office.
- The Term Book, in which the accounts of each student’s performance, in each branch of study, are kept. Once a month the Instructors bring in a return of each student’s performance, which is entered into theses books. His absences from recitations and lectures are entered in the same book. These entries are made by my clerk. In Mr. Quincy’s time, they were made by Mr. Farwell, who took home the books to his own house, every Monday Evening, for that purpose.
- The Prayer books are those in which the monitors of the four classes enter the absences from prayers and church. They come to the President’s office on Monday’s, take away the Books, - make the entries, and return the books.
- The Record Book of the Faculty. The record is made by the Registrator; the book is kept at the President’s office.
- A waste Book is kept by the President, in which he enters leaves of absence from prayers, or church services.
- A letter Book in which all letters on College business, official and unofficial, written by the President are copied. No such book has been kept before my time, nor is there preserved any record of the official correspondence of the President.
All applications to be excused for absence from literary exercises are made to the Faculty in writing. These petitions should be dropped into the letter box at the President’s office on Monday; many of them are delivered to him [in] person, from a real or imaginary necessity of accompanying them with some oral explanation. If granted, the absence or omission to which they apply is to be marked as excused in the books 4 & 5. This is done on Tuesday, at which time also the excuses entered in No 7 are transferred to No. 5.
Petitions to be excused from literary exercises are usually accompanied with requests to be allowed to “make up,” which ought, by the rule to be separate. This however, is often neglected. When written on a separate piece of paper, as it should be, the President writes “allowed, E E,” and gives it to the student, who takes it to the instructor when he is ready to recite. If not written on a separate piece of paper, the President has to write a certificate in full, that the student is allowed to make up, such and such a lesson.
If a petition to be excused is not granted by the Faculty, an explanation more or less detailed has to be given by the President, when the student calls to know, the fate of his petition.
When a student’s unexcused absences from prayers amount to 8, it is usual for the President to send for him and apprize him of that fact. For this purpose, the book no. 5 must be frequently looked over. When they amount to 16 that fact is reported to the Faculty, and a private admonition ordered. The student is then sent for by the President; the accuracy of the monitor’s return is usually disputed by him; all his excuses are canvassed and compared with the entries; & vague general excuses suggested. The same operation mutatis mutandis is gone over in reference to absence from Church and recitations. A certain extra number, after private admonition has been received, subject the Student to public admonition.
These duties form a considerable item in the list of the President’s labors.
Oral applications to be excused from Evening Prayers were very frequent when I came here. It has been the practice always to grant them. The consequence was that if there was no recitation, the afternoon was a holiday; and as it had been the policy to crowd the recitation into the morning, the abuse had gone to a great length. We have, as far as possible, provided an afternoon recitation, & and I decline excusing from Prayers except for a specific cause.
At the end of the month (as above stated) the Instructors return the performance of each student for the preceding month, & these returns are entered in the Term book. This operation employs my clerk from 2 ½ to 3 days. As soon as it is done the students are allowed to call to get their marks. All the Freshmen, most of the Sophomores, and some of the other classes do so. The time of my clerk and myself is usually taken up for about two mornings each month in receiving these calls. On these occasions, the President informs the students, of the deductions – if any – which have been made from their accounts for irregularities of conduct in the recitation room. These deductions are reported by the Instructors with their weekly and monthly returns. In communicating them to the students tedious explanations sometimes take place. I have frequently expressed to the Instructors the opinion that the student ought to be informed at the time of the deduction made: - but they do not coincide with me in the opinion.
At the end of the term the marks of each student in each department are added up, - the aggregate ascertained, - the deductions made for all unexcused absences and irregularities, and the remainder added to the number of the marks on the last scale. Thus a new scale is formed. This is a laborious operation, requiring, at least, a week’s labor on the part of two persons and hard work at that. [Here there is an insert in what appears to be a different hand:] two weeks labor would be much nearer the truth. At the end of the Summer term, it has to be performed in part in great haste, as the commencement parts are assigned on the basis of the last scale, some of the elements of which are not reported, (the last examinations) till the very last day.
The entire official correspondence of the College proper, devolved upon the President. Copies are taken of all my letters, and of those which, though signed by my clerk, are written by me. This correspondence is heavy; and until my time has not been copied, at least I find in the Office only a few stray press copies of the letters of my predecessors.
The calls of Parents and Guardians, (especially when students have been punished) of strangers and visitors take up much time, the former often in a disagreeable way.
When petty breaches of order occur, the President, if he witnesses them, sends for the student and speaks to him. He has more of this to do than is expedient, in consequences of the other officers almost always neglecting it, except so far as is done by way of regular report to the Parietal Board. If a grave disorder comes to the knowledge of the President, he institutes an inquiry into the facts, to be laid before the Faculty. My time for days, and once for weeks has been taken up in these painful investigations. When punishments are ordered by the Faculty, the President announces them to the parties concerned.
The last Paragraph described the most onerous and wearing part of my duty. It is harassing beyond description. It humiliates while it distresses me. If I had not been in total error as to the state of the Institution, I should not have accepted the office. In the expectation that I should be able to govern it by appeals to the honor & good feelings of the young men, I have been disappointed.
There is a good deal of miscellaneous duty performed by the President, which cannot be defined. He generally serves on important committees of the Faculty, is in frequent communication with the police, with the Stewarts – with the Printers- with the Janitors. In a word he is referred to by almost every body on almost every subject connected with the Institution. I have filled offices before, attended with great labor and care, but never one that came up to the Presidency in either respect. A portion of the labor could be thrown off; but I doubt as to the care.
In the revision of the Laws which I have just prepared, and will soon be submitted to the Corporation, I have proposed to revive the practice of “class tutors.” This would relieve the President of a small portion of his labors; not those whose discharge is attended with anxiety. In the original draft of that revision I went farther and proposed a much more serious change, viz, to establish the office of “Dean of the Faculty,” who should be charged with the direct administration of discipline, leaving to the President the general superintendence of the institution in all its departments, AS the “Dean” would naturally been one of the Senior professors, it would have been necessary, in consequence of this arrangement, to relieve him of a considerable part of his duties as an instructor, and to appoint an additional tutor for this purpose, I proposed that the salary of the tutor should be deducted from my own.
But on further reflection I have withdrawn this proposal, for several reasons: chiefly, because I am fearful that under any modification of the Office, it will be found beset with a load of care, which, in my present state of health I cannot support. In the plan as I drew it up, I proposed that the dean should consult the President “in difficult cases.” It is precisely those which constitute the burden. Other matters may take up time in a tedious and unprofitable way, but it is the serious and difficult cases of discipline which have mainly caused my unhappiness at Cambridge.
It is true that a great and decided change for the better has taken place within two years. The discipline of the Institution, which I found much relaxed, has been strengthened, and some long standing abuses corrected. Persons able to make comparisons have said that in some respects the college could be hardly known as the same place. But in those two years, from being a tolerably healthy person, not much beyond the meridian of life, I have become in constitution a feeble, ailing old man.
I should be happy to give you any further information you may desire; and if you could pass one hour at Cambridge, you might derive from the inspection of the books, a more accurate conception of some points of the above detail than can be got in any other way.
I remain, dear sir, with the highest regard,
faithfully yours,
[Edward Everett]