Page:Samuel F. Batchelder - Bits of Harvard History (1924).pdf/161



foregoing exposition of the theory and practice of Commons at Harvard has shown with tolerable clarity that although the outward forms of the English scheme were duly observed for many years, the Yankee interpretation of the principles involved was fundamentally at fault from the beginning, and the more the system was altered in conformity therewith, the more evidently it became a hopeless misfit. And yet, as its later advocates proudly pointed out, it endured for over two hundred years. Certainly, they contended, an institution that lasted so long must of very necessity be a good thing. But they failed to see that the mere time-argument proves no excellence whatever; it cannot for example justify the institution of slavery, which lasted almost as long, or the liquor trade, which lasted much longer. The fact is that the Americanized version of Commons—if a singularly appropriate metaphor may be permitted—was forcibly crammed down the throat of a most unwilling constituency by the unrelenting exertions of a well-meaning but sadly misguided governing body. And a long, loud, and almost unbroken