A Collection of College Words and Customs. Benjamin Homer Hall
the officers and students. Societies of this kind are incorporated, and endowed with revenues.
"A college, in the modern sense of that word, was an institution which arose within a university, probably within that of Paris or of Oxford first, being intended either as a kind of boarding-school, or for the support of scholars destitute of means, who were here to live under particular supervision. By degrees it became more and more the custom that teachers should be attached to these establishments. And as they grew in favor, they were resorted to by persons of means, who paid for their board; and this to such a degree, that at one time the colleges included nearly all the members of the University of Paris. In the English universities the colleges may have been first established by a master who gathered pupils around him, for whose board and instruction he provided. He exercised them perhaps in logic and the other liberal arts, and repeated the university lectures, as well as superintended their morals. As his scholars grew in number, he associated with himself other teachers, who thus acquired the name of fellows. Thus it naturally happened that the government of colleges, even of those which were founded by the benevolence of pious persons, was in the hands of a principal called by various names, such as rector, president, provost, or master, and of fellows, all of whom were resident within the walls of the same edifices where the students lived. Where charitable munificence went so far as to provide for the support of a greater number of fellows than were needed, some of them were intrusted, as tutors, with the instruction of the undergraduates, while others performed various services within their college, or passed a life of learned leisure."—Pres. Woolsey's Hist. Disc., New Haven, Aug. 14, 1850, p. 8.
3. In foreign universities, a public lecture.—Webster.
COLLEGE BIBLE. The laws of a college are sometimes significantly called the College Bible.
He cons the College Bible with eager, longing eyes, And wonders how poor students at six o'clock can rise. Poem before Iadma of Harv. Coll., 1850.
COLLEGER. A member of a college.
We stood like veteran Collegers the next day's screw.—Harvardiana, Vol. III. p. 9. [Little used.]
2. The name by which a member of a certain class of the pupils of Eton is known. "The Collegers are educated gratuitously, and such of them as have nearly but not quite reached the age of nineteen, when a vacancy in King's College, Cambridge, occurs, are elected scholars there forthwith and provided for during life—or until marriage."—Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ., Ed. 2d, pp. 262, 263.
They have nothing in lieu of our seventy Collegers.—Ibid., p. 270.
The whole number of scholars or "Collegers" at Eton is seventy. —Literary World, Vol. XII. p. 285.
COLLEGE YARD. The enclosure on or within which the buildings of a college are situated. Although college enclosures are usually open for others to pass through than those connected with the college, yet by law the grounds are as private as those connected with private dwellings, and are kept so, by refusing entrance, for a certain period, to all who are not members of the college, at least once in twenty years, although the time differs in different States.
But when they got to College yard, With one accord they all huzza'd.—Rebelliad, p. 33.
Not ye, whom science never taught to roam
Far as a College yard or student's home. Harv. Reg., p. 232.
COLLEGIAN. A member of a college, particularly of a literary institution so called; an inhabitant of a college.—Johnson.
COLLEGIATE. Pertaining to a college; as, collegiate studies.
2. Containing a college; instituted after the manner of a college; as, a collegiate society.—Johnson.
COLLEGIATE. A member of a college.
COMBINATION. An agreement, for effecting some object by joint operation; in an ill sense, when the purpose is illegal or iniquitous. An agreement entered into by students to resist or disobey the Faculty of the College, or to do any unlawful act, is a combination. When the number concerned is so great as to render it inexpedient to punish all, those most culpable are usually selected, or as many as are deemed necessary to satisfy the demands of justice.—Laws Yale Coll., 1837, p. 27. Laws Univ. Cam., Mass., 1848, p. 23.
COMBINATION ROOM. In the University of Cambridge Eng., a room into which the fellows, and others in authority withdraw after dinner, for wine, dessert, and conversation.—Webster.
In popular phrase, the word room is omitted.
"There will be some quiet Bachelors there, I suppose," thought I, "and a Junior Fellow or two, some of those I have met in combination."—Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 52.
COMITAT. In the German universities, a procession formed to accompany a departing fellow-student with public honor out of the city.—Howitt.
COMMEMORATION DAY. At the University of Oxford, Eng., this day is an annual solemnity in honor of the benefactors of the University, when orations are delivered, and prize compositions are read in the theatre. It is the great day of festivity for the year.—Huber.
At the University of Cambridge, Eng., there is always a sermon on this day. The lesson which is read in the course of the service is from Ecclus. xliv.: "Let us now praise famous men," &c. It is "a day," says the Gradus ad Cantabrigiam, "devoted to prayers, and good living." It was formerly called Anniversary Day.
COMMENCE. To take a degree, or the first degree, in a university or college.—Bailey.
Nine Bachelors commenced at Cambridge; they were young men of good hope, and performed their acts so as to give good proof of their proficiency in the tongues and arts.—Winthrop's Journal, by Mr. Savage, Vol. II. p. 87.
Four Senior Sophisters came from Saybrook, and received the Degree of Bachelor of Arts, and several others commenced Masters.—Clap's Hist. Yale Coll., p. 20.
A scholar see him now commence, Without the aid of books or sense. Trumbull's Progress of Dullness, 1794, p. 12.
Charles Chauncy … was afterwards, when qualified, sent to the
University of Cambridge, where he commenced Bachelor of Divinity.—Hist. Sketch of First Ch. in Boston, 1812, p. 211.
COMMENCEMENT. The time when students in colleges commence Bachelors; a day in which degrees are publicly conferred in the English and American universities.—Webster.
At Harvard College, in its earliest days, Commencements were attended, as at present, by the highest officers in the State. At the first Commencement, on the second Tuesday of August, 1642, we are told that "the Governour, Magistrates, and the Ministers, from all parts, with all sorts of schollars, and others in great numbers, were present."—New England's First Fruits, in Mass. Hist. Coll., Vol. I. p. 246.
In the MS. Diary of Judge Sewall, under date of July 1, 1685, Commencement Day, is this remark: "Gov'r there, whom I accompanied to Charlestown"; and again, under date of July 2, 1690, is the following entry respecting the Commencement of that year: "Go to Cambridge by water in ye Barge wherein the Gov'r, Maj. Gen'l, Capt. Blackwell, and others." In the Private Journal of Cotton Mather, under the dates of 1708 and 1717, there are notices of the Boston troops waiting on the Governor to Cambridge on Commencement Day. During the presidency of Wadsworth, which continued from 1725 to 1737, "it was the custom," says Quincy, "on Commencement Day, for the Governor of the Province to come from Boston through Roxbury, often by the way of Watertown, attended by his body guards, and to arrive at the College about ten or eleven o'clock in the morning. A procession was then formed of the Corporation, Overseers, magistrates, ministers, and invited gentlemen, and immediately moved from Harvard Hall to the Congregational church." After the exercises of the day were over, the students escorted the Governor, Corporation, and Overseers, in procession, to the President's