“…[the] earliest known program [for the “Junior Burials”] being for the year 1853. On these occasions there was a procession through the city streets with a brass band, banners and burning torches, as the rhetoric textbooks of Richard Whately, George Campbell, and William Spalding were conveyed in a coffin to Ferry Wharf [Fox Point, Providence, at the confluence of the Seekonk and Providence Rivers]. There the students embarked in boats to an offshore spot where the funeral ceremonies were conducted, complete with orations on the textbook authors, a poem and an ode, and the books were thrown overboard [sealed in a coffin].” (Encyclopedia Brunoniana<\/em>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n According to Encyclopedia Brunoniana<\/em> the tradition was taken up again in the 1870s, without the books of Whately but with more ghoulish costumes — and this time a burning of the books rather than a burial-at-sea… <\/p>\n “They were later revived as a \u201ccremation,\u201d and the textbook authors singled out [as] Elias Loomis on analytical geometry and Thomas B. Shaw\u2019s Manual of English<\/em>. The later processions did not head for the boats, but paraded across Red Bridge (and, once across, opened the draw bridge with the approval of the appropriate authorities) and burned the offending books. The cremation held in 1875 was described in rhyme in a local newspaper under the heading, \u201cBrown Boys \u2018On the Rampage\u2019\u201d:<\/p>\n \u201cThursday, by early candle light, The tradition had its last year in Providence in 1884, when the books documenting the university marking-system were buried (the Brown lecturers had started to complain that the students were becoming embarrassingly likely to burn textbooks written by Brown staff).<\/p>\n What of Whately? Richard Whately<\/a> (1787-1863) was not actually a Professor at Brown University, but was rather the British free-market intellectual and nominal churchman who was the author of the hugely influential Elements of Rhetoric<\/a><\/em> (1828) and Elements of Logic<\/a><\/em> (1826), and also the editor of Bacon’s Essays with annotations<\/em> (1857). Lovecraft’s use of the name Wilbur for Wilbur Whateley is a red herring if one looks for it in the real Richard Whately — since it is an obvious nod to Wilbraham, the topographical inspiration for “The Dunwich Horror”.<\/p>\n Could Lovecraft, so ardent a student of his city’s history and of ghoulish burials, have known of the Whately burial tradition? Possibly, although there is no evidence in the surviving letters that I know of. Nor is it in the city histories. A city prefers to forget many things about itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s interesting to learn that there was once a weird end-of-term tradition among junior Brown University students in Providence. In …<\/p>\n![\"what-brown\"](\"https:\/\/www.jurn.link\/tentaclii\/oldimages\/what-brown.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\nappeared a strange and grotesque sight,
\nupon the College Campus green,
\na sight as queer as e\u2019er was seen.
\nIt was the Brown boys, out in force,
\nto celebrate in usual course,
\ntheir Class Day eve, with mock display,
\nand mimic funeral pageantry.
\nThe Juniors, in outlandish guise,
\nbedecked themselves to strike surprise
\nto all who saw them thus arrayed,
\non their accustomed street parade.
\nSome wrapped in winding sheets were \u2018most
\ntoo noisy for a sober ghost,
\nand some wore horns, in travesty
\nof his Satanic majesty,
\nThe latter seemed, upon the whole,
\nfamiliar with the title role,
\nand many, as the train went by,
\ninclined to Darwin\u2019s theory.
\nFrom street to street the cavalcade,
\nwith blatant hand, its progress made;
\nred robes, a skull and cross-bones bare,
\nlooked hideous in the torches\u2019 glare.
\nBeyond the [River] Seekonk\u2019s further shore,
\nthe strange procession marched, and bore
\nan English text-book, with Greek fire,
\nburned on a mock funeral pyre.
\nThis frolic o\u2019er, each Junior sped
\nat midnight to his little bed,
\nending in peace this revel queer,
\nwhich comes, thank God, but once a year.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n