I had four or five persons in my class who became afterward eminent classical scholars.

I do not believe that when we graduated there were more than four men in the class who could write a decent Latin sentence without the laborious use of grammar and dictionary.
I doubt whether there was more than one, certainly there were not more than three, who could do the same thing in Greek.
I do not suppose there was a man in the class who could have spoken either language with ease.
Yet, somehow, the graduates of Harvard got a good intellectual training from the University.

The rough country boy, if he had it in him, came out at his graduation a gentleman in behavior and in character.

He was able to take hold of life with great vigor.

The average age of graduation I suppose was twenty.
Not more than three years were spent in studying a profession.
In some few cases, the graduate got a little money by teaching for a year.