A Collection of College Words and Customs. Benjamin Homer Hall
degree of satisfaction.—Webster.
The cause of this battle every man did allow and approbate.—Hall, Henry VII., Richardson's Dict.
"This word," says Mr. Pickering, "was formerly much used at our colleges instead of the old English verb approve. The students used to speak of having their performances approbated by the instructors. It is also now in common use with our clergy as a sort of technical term, to denote a person who is licensed to preach; they would say, such a one is approbated, that is, licensed to preach. It is also common in New England to say of a person who is licensed by the county courts to sell spirituous liquors, or to keep a public house, that he is approbated; and the term is adopted in the law of Massachusetts on this subject." The word is obsolete in England, is obsolescent at our colleges, and is very seldom heard in the other senses given above.
By the twelfth statute, a student incurs … no penalty by declaiming or attempting to declaim without having his piece previously approbated.—MS. Note to Laws of Harvard College, 1798.
Observe their faces as they enter, and you will perceive some shades there, which, if they are approbated and admitted, will be gone when they come out.—Scenes and Characters in College, New Haven, 1847, p. 18.
How often does the professor whose duty it is to criticise and approbate the pieces for this exhibition wish they were better!—Ibid., p. 195.
I was approbated by the Boston Association, I suspect, as a person well known, but known as an anomaly, and admitted in charity.—Memorial of John S. Popkin, D.D., p. lxxxv.
ASSES' BRIDGE. The fifth proposition of the first book of Euclid is called the Asses' Bridge, or rather "Pons Asinorum," from the difficulty with which many get over it.
The Asses' Bridge in Euclid is not more difficult to be got over, nor the logarithms of Napier so hard to be unravelled, as many of Hoyle's Cases and Propositions.—The Connoisseur, No. LX.
After Mr. Brown had passed us over the "Asses' Bridge," without any serious accident, and conducted us a few steps further into the first book, he dismissed us with many compliments.—Alma Mater, Vol. I. p. 126.
I don't believe he passed the Pons Asinorum without many a halt and a stumble.—Ibid., Vol. I. p. 146.
ASSESSOR. In the English universities, an officer specially appointed to assist the Vice-Chancellor in his court.—Cam. Cal.
AUCTION. At Harvard College, it was until within a few years customary for the members of the Senior Class, previously to leaving college, to bring together in some convenient room all the books, furniture, and movables of any kind which they wished to dispose of, and put them up at public auction. Everything offered was either sold, or, if no bidders could be obtained, given away.
AUDIT. In the University of Cambridge, England, a meeting of the Master and Fellows to examine or audit the college accounts. This is succeeded by a feast, on which occasion is broached the very best ale, for which reason ale of this character is called "audit ale."—Grad. ad Cantab.
This use of the word thirst made me drink an extra bumper of "Audit" that very day at dinner.—Alma Mater, Vol. I. p. 3.
After a few draughts of the Audit, the company disperse.—Ibid. Vol. I. p. 161.
AUTHORITY. "This word," says Mr. Pickering, in his Vocabulary, "is used in some of the States, in speaking collectively of the Professors, &c. of our colleges, to whom the government of these institutions is intrusted."
Every Freshman shall be obliged to do any proper errand or message for the Authority of the College.—Laws Middlebury Coll., 1804, p. 6.
AUTOGRAPH BOOK. It is customary at Yale College for each member of the Senior Class, before the close of his collegiate life, to obtain, in a book prepared for that purpose, the signatures of the President, Professors, Tutors, and of all his classmates, with anything else which they may choose to insert. Opposite the autographs of the college officers are placed engravings of them, so far as they are obtainable; and the whole, bound according to the fancy of each, forms a most valuable collection of agreeable mementos.
When news of his death reached me. I turned to my book of classmate autographs, to see what he had written there, and to read a name unusually dear.—Scenes and Characters in College, New Haven, 1847, p. 201.
AVERAGE BOOK. At Harvard College, a book in which the marks received by each student, for the proper performance of his college duties, are entered; also the deductions from his rank resulting from misconduct. These unequal data are then arranged in a mean proportion, and the result signifies the standing which the student has held for a given period.
In vain the Prex's grave rebuke,
Deductions from the average book. MS. Poem, W.F. Allen, 1848.
B.
B.A. An abbreviation of Baccalaureus Artium, Bachelor of Arts. The first degree taken by a student at a college or university. Sometimes written A.B., which is in accordance with the proper Latin arrangement. In American colleges this degree is conferred in course on each member of the Senior Class in good standing. In the English universities, it is given to the candidate who has been resident at least half of each of ten terms, i.e. during a certain portion of a period extending over three and a third years, and who has passed the University examinations.
The method of conferring the degree of B.A. at Trinity College, Hartford, is peculiar. The President takes the hands of each candidate in his own as he confers the degree. He also passes to the candidate a book containing the College Statutes, which the candidate holds in his right hand during the performance of a part of the ceremony.
The initials of English academical titles always correspond to the English, not to the Latin of the titles, B.A., M.A., D.D., D.C.L., &c.—Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 13.
See BACHELOR.
BACCALAUREATE. The degree of Bachelor of Arts; the first or lowest degree. In American colleges, this degree is conferred in course on each member of the Senior Class in good standing. In Oxford and Cambridge it is attainable in two different ways;—1. By examination, to which those students alone are admissible who have pursued the prescribed course of study for the space of three years. 2. By extraordinary diploma, granted to individuals wholly unconnected with the University. The former class are styled Baccalaurei Formati, the latter Baccalaurei Currentes. In France the degree of Baccalaureat (Baccalaureus Literarum) is conferred indiscriminately upon such natives or foreigners and after a strict examination in the classics, mathematics, and philosophy, are declared to be qualified. In the German universities, the title "Doctor Philosophiæ" has long been substituted for Baccalaureus Artium or Literarum. In the Middle Ages, the term Baccalaureus was applied to an inferior order of knights, who came into the field unattended by vassals; from them it was transferred to the lowest class of ecclesiastics; and thence again, by Pope Gregory the Ninth to the universities. In reference to the derivation of this word, the military classes maintain that it is either derived from the baculus or staff with which knights were usually invested, or from bas chevalier, an inferior kind of knight; the literary classes, with more plausibility, perhaps, trace its origin to the custom which prevailed universally among the Greeks and Romans, and which was followed even in Italy till the thirteenth century, of crowning distinguished individuals with laurel; hence the recipient of this honor was style Baccalaureus, quasi baccis laureis donatus.—Brande's Dictionary.
The subjoined passage, although it may not place the subject in any clearer light, will show the difference of opinion which exists in reference to the derivation of this work. Speaking of the exercises of Commencement at Cambridge Mass., in the early days of Harvard