See under CLASS BOOK.

CLASS CRADLE.  For some years it has been customary at Harvard College for the Senior Class, at the meeting for the election of the officers of Class Day, &c., to appropriate a certain sum of money, usually not exceeding fifty dollars, for the purchase of a cradle, to be given to the first member of the class to whom a child is born in lawful wedlock at a suitable time after marriage.  This sum is intrusted to the hands of the Class Secretary, who is expected to transmit the present to the successful candidate upon the receipt of the requisite information.  In one instance a Baby-jumper was voted by the class, to be given to the second member who should be blessed as above stated.

CLASS CUP.  It is a theory at Yale College, that each class appropriates at graduating a certain amount of money for the purchase of a silver cup, to be given, in the name of the class, to the first member to whom a child shall be born in lawful wedlock at a suitable time after marriage.  Although the presentation of the class cup is often alluded to, yet it is believed that the gift has in no instance been bestowed.  It is to be regretted that a custom so agreeable in theory could not be reduced to practice.

  Each man’s mind was made up
  To obtain the “Class Cup.”
    Presentation Day Songs, June 14, 1854.

See SILVER CUP.

CLASS DAY.  The custom at Harvard College of observing with appropriate exercises the day on which the Senior Class finish their studies, is of a very early date.  The first notice which appears in reference to this subject is contained in an account of the disorders which began to prevail among the students about the year 1760.  Among the evils to be remedied are mentioned the “disorders upon the day of the Senior Sophisters meeting to choose the officers of the class,” when “it was usual for each scholar to bring a bottle of wine with him, which practice the committee (that reported upon it) apprehend has a natural tendency to produce disorders.”  But the disturbances were not wholly confined to the meeting when the officers of Class Day were chosen; they occurred also on Class Day, and it was for this reason that frequent attempts were made at this period, by the College government, to suppress its observance.  How far their efforts succeeded is not known, but it is safe to conclude that greater interruptions were occasioned by the war of the Revolution, than by the attempts to abolish what it would have been wiser to have reformed.

In a MS. Journal, under date of June 21st, 1791, is the following entry:  “Neither the valedictory oration by Ward, nor poem by Walton, was delivered, on account of a division in the class, and also because several were gone home.”  How long previous to this the 21st of June had been the day chosen for the exercises of the class, is uncertain; but for many years after, unless for special reasons, this period was regularly selected for that purpose.  Another extract from the MS. above mentioned, under date of June 21st, 1792, reads:  “A valedictory poem was delivered by Paine 1st, and a valedictory Latin oration by Abiel Abbott.”