HARVARD COLLEGE AWAY FROM CAMBRIDGE.

It is probably unknown to many students that twice since the beginning of the college all work has been suspended in Cambridge, and once, carried elsewhere for a whole year. Both of these periods of absence were during the Revolutionary war and the cause was military exigency in each case. At that time the college numbered so few that a change of location was not quite as difficult as it would be today with our hundreds of students and more instructors than the students of 1775. The first exodus was in May 1775. The provincial army was fast gathering in Cambridge to take part in the siege of Boston. Quarters were needed for the troops. In this emergency, the Massachusetts committee of safety ordered the students to be removed, and the three buildings, Massachusetts, Old Harvard and Old Stoughton were turned into barracks. No college work was done till the following September. In that month, as the siege was still in progress, the college assembled at Concord where the regular curriculum was carried on till June 1776, when all returned to Cambridge. Meanwhile, as the common soldiers occupied the buildings, the provincial Congress had caused the library and apparatus to be removed to Andover. Here they remained in safe keeping at the Theological Seminary until 1778, when they were returned to the proper places. In the fall of 1777 came another exodus. Burgoyne had surrendered and many prisoners were in the hands of the Americans. It was proposed to quarter several hundred of them in the college buildings. All the students were removed. Then the authorities changed their minds and this contemplated desecration avoided. In February, 1778, the students were allowed to return, and work began once more in the old accustomed haunts. Such were a few of the inconveniences which our ancestors underwent while in college in behalf of freedom.