"Convivium is [a] Greek book which is studied at Hamilton College during thelast term of the Freshman year, and is considered somewhat difficult. Uponentering Sophomore [year] it is customary to burn it, with exercisesappropriate to the occasion. . . . A large pyre of rails and pine wood isbuilt on the middle of which is placed a barrel of tar, surrounded by strawsaturated with turpentine. Notice is then given to the upper classes thatConvivium will be burnt that night at twelve o'clock. Their company isrequested at the exercises, which consist of two poems, a tragedy, and afuneral oration. A coffin is laid out with the 'remains' of the book, and theliterary exercises are performed. These concluded, the [Freshman] class formsa procession, preceded by a brass band playing a dirge, and march to the pyre,around which, with uncovered heads, they solemnly form. The four bearers withtheir torches advance silently and place the coffin upon the funeral pyre. Ata given signal, they all bend forward together and touch their torches to theheap of combustibles. In an instant 'a lurid flame arises, licks around thecoffin, and shakes its tongue to heaven.' To these ceremonies succeedfestivities, which are usually continued until daylight."
This is the appropriate point to remind our students, especially members ofthe Class of 2000 ,that "burning the convivium" is not a legitimate activitysanctioned by the Dean of Students Office or the Campus Activities Board.
The second Hamilton reference is to the term "Rust-Ringing": "The freshmen aresupposed to lose some of their verdancy at the end of the last term of thatyear and the 'ringing of the rust' consists in ringing the chapel bell --commencing at midnight -- until the rope wears out. During the ringing, theupper classes are diverted by the display of numerous fireworks, and enlivenedby most beautifully discordant sounds, called 'music,' made to issue from thetin kettle-drums, horse-fiddles, trumpets, horns, etc."
Now, I would not wish our students to misconstrue the repetitive use of suchphrases as burn, torch, flame, and fireworks, as representing the essentials ofa Hamilton education. Naturally, from the faculty's perspective, the morerevealing words from this mid-nineteenth "Collection of College Customs" areactually "Greek," "literary," "poetry," and "music," which do capture some ofthe most enduring elements of a liberal arts education. It is the singularimportance of our kind of education and its survival that I would like to talkto you about this evening.
During the antebellum years the tenets of liberal education at Hamilton wereexpressed in wholly prescribed curricula dominated by Greek and Latin, moralphilosophy, rhetoric, and science -- particularly biology, zoology, chemistry,astronomy, geology, and mathematics.
The responsibility to impart a particular set of moral claims and beliefs alsopervaded the entire nineteenth-century educational effort; the building ofcharacter traits -- moderation, patriotism, and especially piety -- was one ofthe chief aims of a liberal arts education.
Not surprisingly, religious revivals were a standing feature of the springsemester at New England and central and western New York colleges, particularlythose, like Hamilton, located along the rolling hills of the Erie Canal. Welive today on the edge of a region once known as the "burned-over" district, ageographic area where the spirit of revivalism, temperance, anti-Masonry,Mormonism, spiritualism, perfectionism, adventism, and shakerism all blossomedand, in some cases, took root. This semester, those students taking College100, "The Unity of Knowledge" course, will have the unique opportunity ofstudying one of the most extraordinary of these movements -- the nearby OneidaCommunity's experiment in communal living.
Since saving the souls of young people was always a strong motivation, manynineteenth-century college presidents took it upon themselves to present acompulsory series of lectures on moral philosophy. Ideally, this course wasregarded as the capstone of the curriculum. In theory, it aimed to pulltogether, to integrate, and to give meaning and purpose to the students' entirecollege experience and course of study. A typical dose of presidentialmorality might include advice on the best way to handle mobs in town and gownriots, or avuncular words of wisdom for evidence of the existence of ghosts,the relationship between singing societies and early marriages, and the reasonwhy Methodist ministers die young (they don't laugh enough).
You might also hear warnings against the evils of drunkenness, buttressed bystartling accounts of chronic alcoholics burned to cinders, the victims ofspontaneous combustion. When offered by a stimulating and competent professor,the course in moral philosophy also sought to equip the graduating seniors withthe ethical sensitivity and insight needed if they were to put their newl
Posted September 1, 1996
