The School Day and the School Year
Erika Lindemann
For most students, then as now, daily life in the
University fell into a routine, the days adhering pretty
much to the same schedule as they rolled from one semester into the next. Even
so, antebellum students experienced their college days differently from modern
students. Many of the documents selected for this project, especially students'
letters, chart the daily activities of students: what they did, how they
traveled to and from
Chapel
Hill, where their vacations took them, and how they entertained
themselves in a small town with few diversions. Drawing on what these students
reveal about their daily lives, we can describe with reasonable confidence the
school day and school year throughout the antebellum period.
The academic year was slightly longer than it is today. Classes
began in mid-August, and the fall term ended with a four-week vacation
beginning in mid-December. Instruction resumed in mid-January and concluded
with commencement ceremonies in June. Simply getting to
Chapel
Hill to begin the school year could be an adventure. Roads in
North
Carolina were poor. Much of the year they were deep in mud, and the rest
of the time, rocky and deeply rutted. Train travel was not an option until
1833, and even then, the
Petersburg Line running south from
Virginia stopped just inside the
North
Carolina border, at
Blakely,
near present-day
Roanoke
Rapids. From there students had to take the post coach to
Hillsborough for an additional $7, then walk or ride
on horseback the remaining twelve miles. Traveling by stagecoach was slow and
sometimes risky. A trip by stage from
Morganton,
NC, to
Chapel
Hill, a distance of 173 miles, took six days, and at least one student
was robbed of the money his parents had given him to see him through the
semester.
William Pettigrew
almost lost his life when the stagecoach
he was taking to school in
Hillsborough overturned (
Lemmon 2:183). Making the trip on
horseback was faster.
Solomon
Lea
rode his horse from
Leasburg,
NC, to
Hillsborough, a distance of about thirty miles, in
four-and-one-half hours. This method of travel, however, offered no protection
from the rain, so students and their belongings could be soaked by the time
they arrived on campus. Traveling on horseback also meant figuring out what to
do with the horse once the student reached
Chapel
Hill. Though the village had a livery stable, boarding a horse for a
semester was expensive. Students either sold the horse
1 or arranged for
someone to take the animal back home. Students traveling to
Chapel
Hill by horse and buggy report taking along a servant who would return
home with the horse and buggy.
In addition to transporting their own clothing and books, students
also carried with them money and property intended for other people.
Charles Pettigrew
delivered his father's subscription
money for an
Episcopal boys' school in
Raleigh
shortly after arriving in
Chapel
Hill. Other students took books, letters, or clothing to friends and
relatives in the
Chapel
Hill area, errands that might entail a day's travel but that were a
relatively safe way of conveying property.
On reaching
Chapel
Hill, the first order of business was "entering College" and
finding a room. A first-year student, known to other students as a
"Fresh" or "newie," met with the faculty and was examined
on Latin, Greek, and mathematics to determine what studies he might need to
review. For older new students, similar oral examinations determined which
class they would enter. Irregular students, those not seeking a degree, met
with the faculty "for the purpose of ascertaining what studies they wish
to attend to and determining what amount of labour shall be assigned to them
during the Week" (
Faculty Minutes 3:173, UA). Because students arrived at
scattered times for several days, approximately a week at the beginning of the
fall term was given over to examining students.
Most of the dormitory rooms were designed to accommodate two
students, but overcrowding often saw four to six students in a room. Throughout
his presidency,
Caldwell
complained to the
trustees about crowded conditions in the dormitories
(
Henderson 75, 78). By the 1830s
Old East had
twenty-four rooms, eight on each of three floors (
Allcott 10-15). The building
(and its twin,
Old West) was
designed like two adjoining Colonial houses, with four rooms downstairs, two on
each side of a central hallway or "passage" running from the front
door straight through to the back door. The floor plan for the second and third
stories imitated the design of the first floor, which had a stairwell near the
back door to permit access to the upper floors. Each room had its own
fireplace, located on the outside walls parallel to the passageway, and two
windows, which were placed side by side to the right and left of the doors to
the passageway. The passageway was twelve feet wide and approximately
thirty-six feet long. Each room measured sixteen by eighteen feet.
South
Building, modeled on
Nassau
Hall at the
College
of New Jersey (
Princeton), held twenty-three rooms for students as well as
several recitation rooms. The sleeping rooms in this three-story building were
arranged down a central east-west corridor, with four rooms on each end. Each
room also measured sixteen by eighteen feet (
Connor 1:165) with a fireplace
located on an interior wall and at least two windows (corner rooms had three).
Recitation rooms, a
Prayer
Hall, and society meeting rooms took up the space in the center of the
building (
Allcott 17-19).
2 Furnished with
bedsteads, a table, a few chairs and possibly the students' trunks, 288 square
feet of living space must have seemed crowded, even with only two students to a
room, much less the usual four.
Those who missed the opening of the term by a day or so often found
the rooms in the three college dormitories—Old East,
Old West, and
South
Building—filled. Latecomers had to find lodging in one of the
off-campus boarding houses. Some students preferred living in boarding houses.
They were less noisy than rooms in the college; the food tended to be better;
and boarders were less frequently monitored by faculty members and tutors than
students living on campus. Faculty members also took in boarders, but there is
no evidence that students living in the homes of faculty members enjoyed
special standing or were teased by other students.
Shortly after arriving in
Chapel
Hill, the "Fresh" would be recruited for one of the two
debating societies. At least one student,
Solomon
Lea
, expressed concern that students closed out of rooms in the college
might be closed out of the
Philanthropic Society as well. Competition for good students
was keen. Many students, however, already would have made up their minds about
which society to join, especially if friends or relatives were already members.
During the 1830s the
Dialectic
Society was slightly larger than the
Philanthropic Society, the
Dis
claiming 274 members between 1830 and 1839, and the
Phis, 198 members. Though meeting times varied, by 1839 the
societies were meeting in separate halls on the third floor of
South
Building every Friday night until late in the evening. Meetings resumed
on Saturday mornings, when the week's exercises in composition, declamation,
and debate would be completed.
3 By 1832 the
debating societies' halls became so cramped that students initiated campaigns
for new buildings. The campaign ultimately failed, and the societies' halls
remained crowded until
Old East and
Old West were
enlarged in 1848.
The school day was defined by the college bell, which hung in a
wooden tower in the middle of the campus near the campus well.
4 It kept students
and faculty on schedule. The first bell rang at approximately 6:00 a.m. to wake
the students, who had to be in
Person
Hall for prayers by 6:45 a.m.
5 A faculty member
called the roll, read a passage from the
Bible, and led
students in a prayer. Then, before breakfast, students adjourned to their first
recitation.
6 Each class of
students—seniors, juniors, sophomores, and the
"Fresh"—attended the same recitations with other members of the
class. The 7:00 a.m. recitation was the one students resented most, and seniors
earned the special privilege of omitting it from their schedules. The 1838
class schedule reveals that the 7:00 class was not held on Monday mornings. At
8:00 a.m. students raced to
Steward's
Hall or back to their boarding houses for breakfast and a few hours of
study until the second class period, which began at 11:00 a.m.. Dinner, the
largest meal of the day, was served at midday. Students then had several hours
to prepare for their recitations at 4:00 p.m. The school day ended with prayers
in
Person
Hall. After supper, usually a light meal, students were free to
socialize or study. By 8:00 p.m. they had to be in their rooms, the tutors
living in the college monitoring the halls or "passages" to insure
that students kept curfew. Each of these events was signaled by the ringing of
the college bell. It was such a significant part of daily life that students'
favorite prank was to ring it at odd hours, then dash into one of the college
buildings before being detected.
7
Sundays were generally free, but many activities students might have
enjoyed—hunting, fishing, swimming, hiking—were prohibited because
they "profaned the Sabbath."
8 The day began
with prayers, and later in the morning students joined townspeople for
religious services in
Person
Hall. Because
Chapel Hill
had no churches until the 1840s, the responsibility for delivering the sermon
fell in rotation to the ordained ministers on the faculty. On Sunday afternoons
each class of students met with a faculty member or tutor for a recitation on
the "historical portions of the
Bible" or on
some work of moral philosophy.
9 Though these
recitations emphasized
Christian teachings, they attempted to remain
non-denominational.
The village of
Chapel
Hill held few diversions for students. Taverns and a race track west of
town were off limits, of course, and students who were discovered intoxicated
or playing cards or watching races could be suspended. Hoping not to be caught,
some students nevertheless went drinking.
Charles Pettigrew
relates in a January 22, 1834, letter to
his father the unfortunate decline of a roommate given to too much
entertainment:
for the first two months he made no noise studied hard and behaved
himself well and properly and I liked him very much, the affection was
reciprocated, but after a while he got a fiddle and of course got among the
fiddlers in college idle and worthless fellows, then he began somewhat to
absent himself from his room and finally he went and staid with one altogether
although his trunk was in my room, so we parted and very seldom see each other,
after he left me he begun to drink considerably, and to have wines and brandy
continually [. . .]. (
Pettigrew Family Papers, SHC)
Though fiddlers were for
Pettigrew
"idle and worthless fellows," a
student with a fiddle could provide an evening's welcome merriment. Students
also entertained themselves by visiting friends and relatives in the area,
playing backgammon or marbles, hunting, or hiking into the countryside. Bandy,
a popular form of field hockey, was the antebellum equivalent of baseball,
which was unknown until after the
Civil War.
When it got cold enough, ice skating on a nearby pond offered an ideal
opportunity to meet young women living in the village. Students also might be
invited into
Chapel
Hill homes for parties, singing, and candy-pulls. Now and then, a
student would pay to have a local cook prepare a possum, turkey, or oyster
supper to be sent to his room and shared with his friends.
Reading and letter-writing also were significant recreational
activities for students, just as they were for most antebellum adults. The
Philanthropic Society's circulation records show that many
townspeople as well as students borrowed books from the Society's library,
which was open for a few hours each week. Mail service in 1833 was supervised
by postmaster
Isaac C.
Patridge, who also edited
Chapel
Hill's first newspaper
The Harbinger.
Patridge announced in his paper that mail coming from the
north, east, and south would arrive by post coach on Wednesdays and Fridays;
western mail was delivered on Sundays and Thursdays. Mail coming from
Clover
Garden, a community in southwest
Orange
County, NC, that had a post office as early as 1822, arrived only once a
week, on Fridays. The post office opened for a few hours on these days so that
people could pick up and drop off their mail.
Newspapers offered students important connections to the outside
world. Letters often mention items appearing in the
Raleigh Register
and North-Carolina Gazette
or the
Hillsborough Recorder
, which in turn reprinted stories
from the
(Washington D.C.) National Intelligencer
, the
(Philadelphia) Gazette
, or the
(New York) Commercial Advertiser. Local newspapers, however, were
unable to sustain the support necessary to survive.
The Harbinger,
a four-page weekly edited by postmaster
Patridge, began publication in January 1833 and claimed in
its editorial policy to be "Under the supervision of the Professors of the
University." Because
Patridge received many east coast newspapers in the post
office, he published excerpts of what he considered newsworthy items on the
inside pages of
The Harbinger.
The front page was reserved for essays
and articles written by
University professors and, occasionally, students. Articles
covered literature, science, religion, politics, agriculture, and education. A
mathematics puzzle was a regular feature. Though encouraged by Professors
Elisha
Mitchell
and
William
Hooper
,
Patridge discovered that "subscribers and advertisers
were notorious for not paying their bills, and
The Harbinger
ceased its cry in 1834" (
Vickers 39).
A second newspaper, the
Columbian Repository
, began publication in 1836 under
the editorship of
Hugh
McQueen
.
McQueen's
newspaper, also a four-page weekly, followed
The Harbinger's
format, reserving its front page for
scholarly essays. But within a year, the
Columbian Repository
folded too.
Chapel
Hill's business community was not large enough to support a successful
local newspaper until 1923, when
Louis
Graves inaugurated the
Chapel Hill Weekly.
Now and then
Chapel
Hill hosted visiting speakers, usually preachers or political candidates
eager to address the students and townspeople assembled in
Person
Hall. In warm weather, usually in late spring or summer, camp meetings
and religious revivals lasting several days drew students. Students also
celebrated
Washington's birthday (February 22), a holiday
observed in the nineteenth century with much greater enthusiasm than
Presidents'
Day is today. Students received a "snap," an excused absence,
from all classes that day to participate in the festivities. Students still on
campus by July 4th would have enjoyed
Independence Day speeches, delicious food, and the opportunity to meet
local young ladies. Apart from these celebrations, student life must have
seemed fairly routine. Students often report in their letters that they are
studying all the time. The claim perhaps represents a perennial complaint of
students, or it may be intended to impress parents. But it may also be the case
that, most days, studying "tolerable hard" was all there was to
do.
A common trope in students' letters is a concern about people's
health. Almost without exception, students report whether they are ill or well,
comment on the health of classmates, and express concern when letters from home
have omitted information about the well-being of family members. The state of
people's health is important to antebellum students because they are much more
familiar with sickness and death than most of us are. Many students lost
younger brothers or sisters to childhood diseases that we now know how to
treat. When students became ill, they usually remained in their rooms—no
infirmary existed before 1858—which meant that infectious diseases spread
quickly to other students. Though students appear to have been generally
healthy, occasionally they write about fevers, headaches, mumps,
"quinsy" (tonsillitis), and "flux" (dysentery).
Chapel
Hill boasted several doctors, but they often were ineffectual, leaving
such students as
Charles Pettigrew
and his brother
William
, for example, to hit upon their own cure for
William's
illness.
Occasionally, students died at college. In September 1832, as
Solomon
Lea
relates, sophomore
James N.
Neal
of
Chatham
County, NC, died. The following year,
James T.
Smith, a sophomore from
Anson County,
NC, also died (
The Harbinger, October 1, 1833,
p. 3). The cause of death often was unknown. Disease could come on quickly and
run its fatal course in only a few days. Aware of these realities, students
were eager to assure their correspondents that they are well, news that must
have been a relief to anxious relatives and friends.
In late November students stood mid-year examinations in all
subjects. Extending over four days, these examinations were similar to
recitations, each class assembling with its professor, who asked students
questions about the material covered. Unlike the usual recitations, however,
these examinations were attended by "assessors," one or two
University faculty members who observed the proceedings.
By December students were eager to leave the campus. Most of them
went home for the vacation, enjoying a round of parties, visits with relatives
and friends, and perhaps a wedding celebration. A few students took extended
trips. In a February 11, 1836, letter to his cousin,
Mary Ann Lenoir
,
John T.
Jones
describes meeting
President
Jackson
and attending his
Christmas
party during a vacation that included stops in
Washington
DC,
Baltimore,
and
New York.
Doubtless the holidays ended much too quickly for most students, who were back
at their studies by mid-January. Students beginning their
University studies in January would meet with the faculty to
determine by oral examination which class they would enter.
April saw the beginning of preparations for commencement. Seniors
began work on the second of two senior speeches—the first had been
delivered during the fall term—and on whatever speeches the faculty had
assigned them for the commencement ceremonies. The Latin salutatory went to
highest ranking senior; the valedictory, to the second "mite" man.
Until 1836 students earning first, second, and third honors would deliver
original orations on topics selected with the approval of the professor of
rhetoric and logic; after 1836, the debating societies each elected three
representatives, seniors who generally excelled at speaking, to deliver
commencement orations. Students graduating without honors prepared
"forensics," debates on pre-arranged topics. Unless the faculty
explicitly excused students from these performances, every graduating senior
had a speaking role in his own commencement ceremonies.
10
By early May students were eagerly anticipating the "Senior
Report," the faculty's announcement of which graduating seniors had earned
distinctions. Students had a keen interest in this public report, read before
the entire student body. Though students probably received grades from
individual faculty members on virtually every recitation, what mattered
most—to faculty and students alike—were the rankings of students in
their classes at the end of the year. Students seemed to know well in advance
of the announcement how the rankings were likely to turn out, which students
were in danger of falling behind, and which debating society would claim the
most distinctions. As a result, students responded to the senior report with
either elation or distress, depending on which debating society had come away
with the most honors. For some, the report confirmed students' convictions that
the faculty were rogues and rascals whose partiality and favoritism cheated
deserving students out of their honors. While the senior report rarely met with
universal approval, in 1839 it caused particular hostility, and students of the
Philanthropic Society threatened to boycott the commencement
ceremonies. Faculty minutes included in this project narrate this episode,
which ended when
Society members withdrew their threat. Curiously, the senior
report was announced prior to the public examinations that concluded the school
year. A senior's performance on these end-of-year examinations evidently did
not alter his standing.
11
The month before commencement, seniors were excused from attending
classes and from routine duties in their debating societies. Ostensibly this
vacation was meant to give them time to complete their commencement speeches
and to pursue their own reading, perhaps in the law, medicine, or theology.
Some seniors doubtless took advantage of this opportunity for independent
study; many others simply went home, returning a month later to participate in
commencement. Students who were not graduating prepared for the annual
examinations, which began in mid-June and lasted for about ten days, until
commencement week. The examinations were announced in local newspapers and were
attended by a committee of the
board of
trustees. They were public, oral examinations conducted by the faculty,
trustees reserving the right to ask students questions. One might think that so
public and potentially embarrassing a scene would make students apprehensive,
but their letters rarely comment on these examinations, except to report that
they took place.
Preparations for commencement week also occupied the debating
societies. The societies alternated the responsibility of inviting a prominent
guest speaker to deliver a public "address before the literary
societies," which the society sometimes published later at its own
expense. Each society also held ceremonies for its own members, conferring
society diplomas on its graduating seniors. Commencement week also offered the
societies an opportunity to show off their meeting halls. Minutes of society
meetings reflect students' desires to spruce up their halls by having chairs
repaired, new curtains hung, mantelpieces replaced, and ceilings and walls
replastered and painted. For most students, however, the most important social
event of the year was the commencement ball, an elegant supper and dance held
in a local hotel on Thursday evening after the graduation ceremonies. A band
played quadrilles, schottisches, redowas, waltzes, polkas, and mazourkas, and
some students spent part of the spring semester taking private dancing lessons
to make a good impression. Most students anticipated the ball months in advance
by making sure that they had appropriate new clothes for the occasion.
Commencement week began on the fourth Monday in June
12 and ended with
the commencement ball on Thursday evening. The schedule varied little from year
to year, though a baccalaureate sermon was added in 1839.
13 Most of the
events took place in
Person
Hall until 1837, when the new chapel
Gerrard
Hall was completed. On Monday evening approximately seven first-year
students presented declamations. A comparable number of sophomores declaimed on
Tuesday night. These students were selected to represent their classes by
virtue of having completed their academic work for the year with distinction.
On Wednesday a prominent speaker chosen by the members of one of the debating
societies delivered an address. In some years six society
representatives—three elected from each society—also gave speeches
or conducted a debate. On Thursday morning, the student marshall led a
dignified procession of faculty,
trustees, students, family members, and guests
through the campus to the chapel. The graduation exercises took up most of the
day. After an opening prayer, the Latin salutatory was delivered by the senior
earning the first distinction. Then the rest of the honors graduates delivered
their addresses, which alternated with "forensics," debates by
seniors who were graduating without honors. Musical interludes sometimes
followed each speech or group of speeches. After a break for the noon meal, the
speeches and debates resumed in the afternoon. The last speech was the
valedictory address, given by the student earning the second distinction. Then
the president read the report on the public examinations, conferred the
degrees, including honorary masters and doctoral degrees, and concluded the
ceremonies with a prayer. Students and their guests then adjourned to their
rooms and local hotels to prepare for the ball, an altogether fitting way to
celebrate the achievements of the
University's most recent graduates.
Endnotes:
1.
Thomas I.
Lenoir
, writing to his father on April 30, 1839, explains that he sold
his saddle and horse Henry Clay to his brother-in-law
Joseph Norwood
in
Hillsborough, NC, for $100 (Lenoir Family Papers,
SHC).
2. When
South
Building was renovated in 1827, the large room in the middle of the
first floor, known as the
Prayer
Hall but probably used for recitations, "was converted into a
chemical laboratory, and the rooms above made into a library and lecture-room
called the
Philosophical Chamber, for the President and Professor of
Rhetoric" (
Henderson 85).
3. The 1837 "order of recitation" or class schedule
reveals that all students except seniors attended two classes on Saturday
mornings (
Faculty Minutes 3:173, UA). The 1838 class schedule omits Saturday
classes in response to requests from both debating societies that students be
allowed to complete society business on Saturday morning.
4. Though the
Old Well is
today the symbol of the
University, antebellum students do not attach particular
significance to it.
5. The schedule described in this paragraph was in effect most of
the school year. However, from May through August the afternoon recitation was
moved from 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. and curfew from 8:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. to
take advantage of the longer summer days:
From the 1st of November to the 15th of February,
morning prayers shall be at a quarter before 7 o'clock; the rest of the year,
morning prayers shall be at sunrise. From the first of September to the first
of May, the hours of study in the forenoon shall be from 9 till 12, and from 2
till 5 in the afternoon; and the bell shall be rung for summoning the Students
to their rooms at 8 o'clock in the evening. Through the other part of the year,
the hours of study in the forenoon shall be from half past 8 till 12, and from
3 till 6 in the afternoon; and the bell shall be rung in the evening at 9
o'clock. (
Acts 11-12)
6. Most classes in the 1830s were held in
South
Building, but tutors may have held their recitations in dormitory rooms
in
Old East
and
Old West.
In 1842 several years after
Gerrard
Hall became the new chapel,
Person
Hall was divided by thick walls and large chimneys into four classrooms,
"one to the Latin, one to the Greek, one to the Rhetoric Professor, and
one to the Tutor of Ancient Languages" (
Battle 1:554).
7.
James
Boylan, writing to his sister
Kate in
Raleigh in
September 1839, disparages the practice: "Bell-ringing had gone quite into
disrepute, and is never resorted to now, except by Fresh and Newies who deem it
quite a novel trick. Some of the above mentioned were engaged, a few nights
since, in this delightful amusement, to the annoyance both of Faculty &
students—When I, under the influence of my blundering genius, took it
into my head to act the part [of] the Faculty and chase them—but instead
of coming upon students, I caught one of the tutors, who was then after the
offenders—The Fresh exult and try to tease me very much about my
quiz—" (
John Haywood Papers, SHC).
8. "On Sunday the Students shall refrain from their ordinary
diversions and exercises. They shall not fish, hunt or swim, nor shall they
walk far abroad, but shall observe a quiet and orderly behaviour" (
Acts 16).
9.
Elisha
Mitchell's
Statistics, Fact, and Dates, for the Sunday Recitations of the
Junior Class in the University
(New York: R. Craighead, 1850)
treats the geography and history of
Palestine
much as a textbook would, without delving into explicitly religious
teachings.
10.
Battle's
History of the
University of North Carolina
offers the most accessible,
comprehensive listing of topics on which students spoke. In the 1840s and
1850s, as the graduating classes grew larger, only those students earning
first, second, and third distinctions gave commencement addresses.
11. Faculty minutes reveal that in 1841 seniors were still being
examined in all their subjects at the end of the year; however, by May 12,
1843, seniors took only one public examination,
Gov.
Swain
questioning them on political economy and international and
constitutional law.
12. By 1840 commencement week began on the first Monday in
June.
13.
Elisha
Mitchell
gave the first baccalaureate sermon. In 1831, 1832, and 1835
the
North Carolina Institute of Education was held in
conjunction with commencement activities. Attended by teachers and friends of
education, the
Institute presented talks on such topics as teaching in
primary schools, elocution, lyceums, preparing students for college, efforts to
promote public education, and "a more sparing use of the rod" (
Battle
1:354). The description of commencement week is drawn from
Battle's
History of the
University of North Carolina
as well as from commencement programs,
ball announcements, and dance cards housed in the NCC.