The title of President is given to the chief officer in some of the colleges of the English universities.

PRESIDENT’S CHAIR.  At Harvard College, there is in the Library an antique chair, venerable by age and association, which is used only on Commencement Day, when it is occupied by the President while engaged in delivering the diplomas for degrees.  “Vague report,” says Quincy, “represents it to have been brought to the College during the presidency of Holyoke, as the gift of the Rev. Ebenezer Turell of Medford (the author of the Life of Dr. Colman).  Turell was connected by marriage with the Mathers, by some of whom it is said to have been brought from England.”  Holyoke was President from 1737 to 1769.  The round knobs on the chair were turned by President Holyoke, and attached to it by his own hands.  In the picture of this honored gentleman, belonging to the College, he is painted in the old chair, which seems peculiarly adapted by its strength to support the weight which fills it.

Before the erection of Gore Hall, the present library building, the books of the College were kept in Harvard Hall.  In the same building, also, was the Philosophy Chamber, where the chair usually stood for the inspection of the curious.  Over this domain, from the year 1793 to 1800, presided Mr. Samuel Shapleigh, the Librarian.  He was a dapper little bachelor, very active and remarkably attentive to the ladies who visited the Library, especially the younger portion of them.  When ushered into the room where stood the old chair, he would watch them with eager eyes, and, as soon as one, prompted by a desire of being able to say, “I have sat in the President’s Chair,” took this seat, rubbing his hands together, he would exclaim, in great glee, “A forfeit! a forfeit!” and demand from the fair occupant a kiss, a fee which, whether refused or not, he very seldom failed to obtain.[61]

This custom, which seems now-a-days to be going out of fashion, is mentioned by Mr. William Biglow, in a poem before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, recited in their dining-hall, August 29, 1811.  Speaking of Commencement Day and its observances, he says:—­

 “Now young gallants allure their favorite fair
  To take a seat in Presidential chair;
  Then seize the long-accustomed fee, the bliss
  Of the half ravished, half free-granted kiss.”

The editor of Mr. Peirce’s History of Harvard University publishes the following curious extracts from Horace Walpole’s Private Correspondence, giving a description of some antique chairs found in England, exactly of the same construction with the College chair; a circumstance which corroborates the supposition that this also was brought from England.

HORACE WALPOLE TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

“Strawberry Hill, August 20, 1761.