Commons were introduced into Harvard College at its first establishment, in the year 1636, in imitation of the English universities, and from that time until the year 1849, when they were abolished, seem to have been a never-failing source of uneasiness and disturbance. While the infant College with the title only of "school," was under the superintendence of Mr. Nathaniel Eaton, its first "master," the badness of commons was one of the principal causes of complaint. "At no subsequent period of the College history," says Mr. Quincy, "has discontent with commons been more just and well founded, than under the huswifery of Mrs. Eaton." "It is perhaps owing," Mr. Winthrop observes in his History of New England, "to the gallantry of our fathers, that she was not enjoined in the perpetual malediction they bestowed on her husband." A few years after, we read, in the "Information given by the Corporation and Overseers to the General Court," a proposition either to make "the scholars' charges less, or their commons better." For a long period after this we have no account of the state of commons, "but it is not probable," says Mr. Peirce, "they were materially different from what they have been since." During the administration of President Holyoke, from 1737 to 1769, commons were the constant cause of disorders among the students. There appears to have been a very general permission to board in private families before the year 1737: an attempt was then made to compel the undergraduates to board in commons. After many resolutions, a law was finally passed, in 1760, prohibiting them "from dining or supping in any house in town, except on an invitation to dine or sup _gratis_." "The law," says Quincy, "was probably not very strictly enforced. It was limited to one year, and was not renewed."