No student, while in the State of Massachusetts, was allowed, either in vacation or term time, to wear any different dress or ornament from those above named, except in case of mourning, when he could wear the customary badges.  Although dismission was the punishment for persisting in the violation of these regulations, they do not appear to have been very well observed, and gradually, like the other laws of an earlier date on this subject, fell into disuse.  The night-gowns or dressing-gowns continued to be worn at prayers and in public until within a few years.  The black-mixed, otherwise called OXFORD MIXED cloth, is explained under the latter title.

The only law which now obtains at Harvard College on the subject of dress is this:  “On Sabbath, Exhibition, Examination, and Commencement days, and on all other public occasions, each student, in public, shall wear a black coat, with buttons of the same color, and a black hat or cap.”—­Orders and Regulations of the Faculty of Harv.  Coll., July, 1853, p. 5.

At one period in the history of Yale College, a passion for expensive dress having become manifest among the students, the Faculty endeavored to curb it by a direct appeal to the different classes.  The result was the establishment of the Lycurgan Society, whose object was the encouragement of plainness in apparel.  The benefits which might have resulted from this organization were contravened by the rashness of some of its members.  The shape which this rashness assumed is described in a work entitled “Scenes and Characters in College,” written by a Yale graduate of the class of 1821.

“Some members were seized with the notion of a distinctive dress.  It was strongly objected to; but the measure was carried by a stroke of policy.  The dress proposed was somewhat like that of the Quakers, but less respectable,—­a rustic cousin to it, or rather a caricature; namely, a close coatee, with stand-up collar, and very short skirts,—­skirtees, they might be called,—­the color gray; pantaloons and vest the same;—­making the wearer a monotonous gray man throughout, invisible at twilight.  The proposers of this metamorphosis, to make it go, selected an individual of small and agreeable figure, and procuring a suit of fine material, and a good fit, placed him on a platform as a specimen.  On him it appeared very well, as a belted blouse does on a graceful child; and all the more so, as he was a favorite with the class, and lent to it the additional effect of agreeable association.  But it is bad logic to derive a general conclusion from a single fact:  it did not follow that the dress would be universally becoming because it was so on him.  However, majorities govern; the dress was voted.  The tailors were glad to hear of it, expecting a fine run of business.