This month in Harvard history

April 25, 1674 – The Harvard Corporation orders that “freshmen of the Colledg shall not at any time be compelled by any Senior students to goe on errands or doe any servile work for them. And if any shall præsume to send them in times injoyned for study both the sender and the goer shall be punished.”

April 1775 – In his diary, Samuel Chandler, Class of 1775, reports bowling in Cambridge against classmates for cakes and ale. He loses “only one Bottle.”

April 19, 1775 – Six Harvard students march off with the Minutemen.

April 17, 1893 – The first Blaschka glass flowers are formally presented to the Botanical Museum as a memorial to Dr. Charles Eliot Ware, Class of 1834, by his widow Elizabeth C. Ware and daughter Mary L. Ware. The two women had taken an early interest in the developing project and given it generous financial support. When completed in 1936, the Ware Collection of Glass Models of Plants will include more than 3,000 world-renowned specimens.

– From the Harvard Historical Calendar, a database compiled by Marvin Hightower