e State of Massachusetts, was allowed,
either in vacation or term time, to wear any different dress or
ornament from those above named, except in case of mourning, when
he could wear the customary badges. Although dismission was the
punishment for persisting in the violation of these regulations,
they do not appear to have been very well observed, and gradually,
like the other laws of an earlier date on this subject, fell into
disuse. The night-gowns or dressing-gowns continued to be worn at
prayers and in public until within a few years. The black-mixed,
otherwise called OXFORD MIXED cloth, is explained under the latter
title.

The only law which now obtains at Harvard College on the subject
of dress is this: "On Sabbath, Exhibition, Examination, and
Commencement days, and on all other public occasions, each
student, in public, shall wear a black coat, with buttons of the
same color, and a black hat or cap."--_Orders and Regulations of
the Faculty of Harv. Coll._, July, 1853, p. 5.

At one period in the history of Yale College, a passion for
expensive dress having become manifest among the students, the
Faculty endeavored to curb it by a direct appeal to the different
classes. The result was the establishment of the Lycurgan Society,
whose object was the encouragement of plainness in apparel. The
benefits which might have resulted from this organization were
contravened by the rashness of some of its members. The shape
which this rashness assumed is described in a work entitled
"Scenes and Characters in College," written by a Yale graduate of
the class of 1821.

"Some members were seized with the notion of a _distinctive
dress_. It was strongly objected to; but the measure was carried
by a stroke of policy. The dress proposed was somewhat like that
of the Quakers, but less respectable,--a rustic cousin to it, or
rather a caricature; namely, a close coatee, with stand-up collar,
and _very_ short skirts,--_skirtees_, they might be called,--the
color gray; pantaloons and vest the same;--making the wearer a
monotonous gray man throughout, invisible at twilight. The
proposers of this metamorphosis, to make it go, selected an
individual of small and agreeable figure, and procuring a suit of
fine material, and a good fit, placed him on a platform as a
specimen. On _him_ it appeared very well, as a belted blouse does
on a graceful child; and all the more so, as he was a favorite
with the class, and lent to it the additio