“On the 21st of June, 1798, the day of the dismission of the Senior Class from all academic exercises, the class met in the College chapel to attend the accustomed ceremonies of the occasion, and afterwards to enjoy the usual festivities of the day, since called, for the sake of a name, and for brevity’s sake, Class Day.  There had been a want of perfect harmony in the previous proceedings, which in some degree marred the social enjoyments of the day; but with the day all dissension closed, awaiting the dawn of another day, the harbinger of the brighter recollections of four years spent in pleasant and peaceful intercourse.  There lingered no lasting alienations of feeling.  Whatever were the occasions of the discontent, it soon expired, was buried in the darkest recesses of discarded memories, and there lay lost and forgotten.

“After the exercises of the chapel, and visiting the President, Professors, and Tutors at the President’s house, according to the custom still existing, we marched in procession round the College halls, to another hall in Porter’s tavern, (which some dozen or fifteen of the oldest living graduates may perhaps remember as Bradish’s tavern, of ancient celebrity,) where we dined.  After dining, we assembled at the Liberty Tree, (according to another custom still existing,) and in due time, having taken leave of each other, we departed, some of us to our family homes, and others to their rooms to make preparations for their departure.”—­Memories of Youth and Manhood, Vol.  II. pp. 1, 3.

Referring to the same event, he observes in another place:  “In speaking of the leave-taking of the College by my class, on the 21st of June, 1798,—­Class Day, as it is now called,—­I inadvertently forgot to mention, that according to custom, at that period, [Samuel P.P.] Fay delivered a Latin Valedictory Oration in the Chapel, in the presence of the Immediate Government, and of the students of other classes who chose to be present.  Speaking to him on the subject some time since, he told me that he believed [Judge Joseph] Story delivered a Poem on the same occasion....  There was no poetical performance in the celebration of the day in the class before ours, on the same occasion; Dr. John C. Warren’s Latin oration being the only performance, and his class counting as many reputed poets as ours did.”—­Ibid., Vol.  II. p. 320.

Alterations were continually made in the observances of Class Day, and in twenty years after the period last mentioned, its character had in many particulars changed.  Instead of the Latin, an English oration of a somewhat sportive nature had been introduced; the Poem was either serious or comic, at the writer’s option; usually, however, the former.  After the exercises in the Chapel, the class commonly repaired to Porter’s Hall, and there partook of a dinner, not always observing with perfect strictness the rules of temperance either in eating or drinking.  This “cenobitical symposium” concluded, they