...For the many campus customs at Yale in those times none appears to have been entered into with so much gusto and zest as the annual farcical pageant >of the Burial of Euclid, with which the sophomore class was wont to celebrate its mathematical emancipation.

There are many records of this ceremonial in the Yale archives, and though in its details it naturally varied with the genius of the class, it maintained its identity in form over a period of generations. The sophomore class having been summoned to gloat over Euclid's death, assembled in some college hall which was bedecked suitable to the occasion.The scene was dominated by a large and lurid cartoon which bristled in detail with fire and fury, and depicted how in the presence of Jupiter demon stokers were assisting at the consumption of Euclid's remains in a sea of blazing tar. A Dismal forest with embattled demons dilled the remoted parts of the scene, while in the foreground a student visibly filled with despair lent company to a weeping crocodile. Under this aspect Euclid's volume was perforated with a glowing poker, each man of the class thrusting the iron through in turn to signify that he had gone through Euclid. Following this the book was held for a moment ove each man to betoken that he had understood Euclid, and finaly each man passed the pages under goot that he might say thereafter that he had gone over Euclid.

These preliminaries accomplished, the funeral cortege was formed, and proceeded lugubriously, with grotesque garb and blazing torchlights to the chosen place of interment. At times Euclid himself was impersonated, dressed in classic raiment and pressinghis beloved volume to his breast, and at others the book alone was borne suitably shrouded at the head of the procession. At the pyre the celebration waxed in boisterousness and assumed more the aspects of revelry. There was elaborate mock lamentation, a funeral oration was held, and dirges more or less derisive were sung.

"No more we gaze upon that board
Where oft our knowledge failed,
As we its mystic lines ignored,
On cruel points impaled."
      *   *   *   *
"We're free! Hurrah! We've got him fast
Old Euk is nicely caged at last."
      *   *   *   *
"Black curls the smoke above the pile
and snaps the crackling fire:
The joyful shouts of Merry Sophs
With wails and groans conspire.
May yells more fiendish greet thy ears,
And flames yet hotter glow;
May fiercer torments rack thy soul
In Pluto's realms below."