Exhortation read to 27 of the Sophomore class, 1797 July 1

9-page handwritten copy of an address by Eliphalet Pearson read to twenty-seven members of the sophomore class after an incident on June 27, 1797 in which "in direct violation of College law a majority of the sophomore class repaired to the house of Richard Boardman in this town; that they did then & there indulge to a free use of wine" that incited them to drunkenly parade through town and disturb the evening church services of the College.

" Lines upon the late proceedings of the College Government" collection, 1787-1917

This collection contains various manifestations of a humorous poem, most often called "Lines upon the late proceedings of the College Government," written by classmates John Quincy Adams and John Murray Forbes in 1787. Both Adams and Forbes were members of the class of 1787, and the poem recounts events surrounding the pranks and ensuing punishment of two members of the class behind them, Robert Wier and James Prescott. Wier and Prescott had been caught drinking wine and making "riotous noise," and they were publicly reprimanded by Harvard President Joseph Willard and several professors and tutors, including Eliphalet Pearson, Eleazar James, Jonathan Burr, Nathan Read, and Timothy Lindall Jennison. The poem mocks these authority figures, but it spares Samuel Williams, whom it suggests was the only professor to find their antics humorous.