“At first, a college without common meals was hardly conceived of; and, indeed, if we trace back the history of college as they grew up at Paris, nothing is more of their essence than that students lived and ate together in a kind of conventual system.  No doubt, also, when the town of New Haven was smaller, it was far more difficult to find desirable places for boarding than at present.  But however necessary, the Steward’s department was always beset with difficulties and exposed to complaints which most gentlemen present can readily understand.  The following rations of commons, voted by the Trustees in 1742, will show the state of college fare at that time.  ’Ordered, that the Steward shall provide the commons for the scholars as follows, viz.:  For breakfast, one loaf of bread for four, which [the dough] shall weigh one pound.  For dinner for four, one loaf of bread as aforesaid, two and a half pounds beef, veal, or mutton, or one and three quarter pounds salt pork about twice a week in the summer time, one quart of beer, two pennyworth of sauce [vegetables].  For supper for four, two quarts of milk and one loaf of bread, when milk can conveniently be had, and when it cannot, then apple-pie, which shall be made of one and three fourth pounds dough, one quarter pound hog’s fat, two ounces sugar, and half a peck apples.’  In 1759 we find, from a vote prohibiting the practice, that beer had become one of the articles allowed for the evening meal.  Soon after this, the evening meal was discontinued, and, as is now the case in the English colleges, the students had supper in their own rooms, which led to extravagance and disorder.  In the Revolutionary war the Steward was quite unable once or twice to provide food for the College, and this, as has already appeared, led to the dispersion of the students in 1776 and 1777, and once again in 1779 delayed the beginning of the winter term several weeks.  Since that time, nothing peculiar has occurred with regard to commons, and they continued with all their evils of coarse manners and wastefulness for sixty years.  The conviction, meanwhile, was increasing, that they were no essential part of the College, that on the score of economy they could claim no advantage, that they degraded the manners of students and fomented disorder.  The experiment of suppressing them has hitherto been only a successful one.  No one, who can retain a lively remembrance of the commons and the manners as they were both before and since the building of the new hall in 1819, will wonder that this resolution was adopted by the authorities of the College.”—­pp. 70-72.