Education: Butter

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At Harvard University, 289 years ago, a meal of baked beans and fish cakes was served in the university Commons. The undergraduate body— "two nephews of the president and the professor's son"— complained bitterly about the fish cakes. They added that the butter was bad. For many years thereafter, good wholesome fare was served in Commons, at the sight of which Harvard students laid down their table implements; sweet dairy butter was passed at which they bit their thumbs. Things reached a crisis about the butter, in colonial days, when a "Butter Rebellion" was organized, and Harvard funny men chanted a petition alleging that "our butter stinketh,— give us therefore, butter that stinketh not." Sir Thomas Bernard, the Royal Governor, suppressed the insurgent popinjays, but the spirit of the dead rebellion lingered noticeably in the air. There have been, from time to time, other unpleasant outbursts. White cloths were put upon the tables, meal tickets were provided, young women were procured as waitresses; all to no good. Men have continued to hurry from the hall with anxious looks, crying wildly that the butter was after them. Last week, another Harvard tradition fell. Memorial Hall Commons, gulfed in an increasing deficit, was abandoned.