character.

In a late work by Professor Sidney Willard, he says of his father,
who was President of Harvard College: "In the early period of his
Presidency, Mr. Willard not unfrequently delivered a sermon at
evening prayers on Sunday. In the year 1794, I remember he
preached once or twice on that evening, but in the next year and
onward he discontinued the service. His predecessor used to
expound passages of Scripture as a part of the religious service.
These expositions are frequently spoken of in the diary of Mr.
Caleb Gannett when he was a Tutor. On Saturday evening and Sunday
morning and evening, generally the College choir sang a hymn or an
anthem. When these Sunday services were observed in the Chapel,
the Faculty and students worshipped on Lord's day, at the stated
hours of meeting, in the Congregational or the Episcopal Church."
--_Memories of Youth and Manhood_, Vol. I. pp. 137, 138.

At Yale College, one of the earliest laws ordains that "all
undergraduates shall publicly repeat sermons in the hall in their
course, and also bachelors; and be constantly examined on Sabbaths
[at] evening prayer."--_Pres. Woolsey's Discourse_, p. 59.

Prayers at this institution were at one period regulated by the
following rule. "The President, or in his Absence, one of the
Tutors in their Turn, shall constantly pray in the Chapel every
Morning and Evening, and read a Chapter, or some suitable Portion
of Scripture, unless a Sermon, or some Theological Discourse shall
then be delivered. And every Member of College is obliged to
attend, upon the Penalty of one Penny for every Instance of
Absence, without a sufficient Reason, and a half Penny for being
tardy, i.e. when any one shall come in after the President, or go
out before him."--_Laws Yale Coll._, 1774, p. 5.

A writer in the American Literary Magazine, in noticing some of
the evils connected with the American college system, describes
very truthfully, in the following question, a scene not at all
novel in student life. "But when the young man is compelled to
rise at an unusually early hour to attend public prayers, under
all kinds of disagreeable circumstances; when he rushes into the
chapel breathless, with wet feet, half dressed, and with the
prospect of a recitation immediately to succeed the devotions,--is
it not natural that he should be listless, or drowsy, or excited
about his recitation, during the whole sacred exercise?"--Vol. IV.
p. 517.

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