A Collection of College Words and Customs. Benjamin Homer Hall
the main exercises were disputations upon questions wherein the respondents first made their Theses: For according to Vossius, the very essence of the Baccalaureat seems to lye in the thing: Baccalaureus being but a name corrupted of Batualius, which Batualius (as well as the French Bataile [Bataille]) comes à Batuendo, a business that carries beating in it: So that, Batualii fuerunt vocati, quia jam quasi batuissent cum adversario, ac manus conseruissent; hoc est, publice disputassent, atque ita peritiæ suæ specimen dedissent."—Mather's Magnalia, B. IV. p. 128.
The Seniors will be examined for the Baccalaureate, four weeks before Commencement, by a committee, in connection with the Faculty.—Cal. Wesleyan Univ., 1849, p. 22.
BACHELOR. A person who has taken the first degree in the liberal arts and sciences, at a college or university. This degree, or honor, is called the Baccalaureate. This title is given also to such as take the first degree in divinity, law, or physic, in certain European universities. The word appears in various forms in different languages. The following are taken from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. "French, bachelier; Spanish, bachiller, a bachelor of arts and a babbler; Portuguese, bacharel, id., and bacello, a shoot or twig of the vine; Italian, baccelliere, a bachelor of arts; bacchio, a staff; bachetta, a rod; Latin, bacillus, a stick, that is, a shoot; French, bachelette, a damsel, or young woman; Scotch, baich, a child; Welsh, bacgen, a boy, a child; bacgenes, a young girl, from bac, small. This word has its origin in the name of a child, or young person of either sex, whence the sense of babbling in the Spanish. Or both senses are rather from shooting, protruding."
Of the various etymologies ascribed to the term Bachelor, "the true one, and the most flattering," says the Gradus ad Cantabrigiam, "seems to be bacca laurus. Those who either are, or expect to be, honored with the title of Bachelor of Arts, will hear with exultation, that they are then 'considered as the budding flowers of the University; as the small pillula, or bacca, of the laurel indicates the flowering of that tree, which is so generally used in the crowns of those who have deserved well, both of the military states, and of the republic of learning.'—Carter's History of Cambridge, [Eng.], 1753."
BACHELOR FELLOW. A Bachelor of Arts who is maintained on a fellowship.
BACHELOR SCHOLAR. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., a B.A. who remains in residence after taking his degree, for the purpose of reading for a fellowship or acting as private tutor. He is always noted for superiority in scholarship.
Bristed refers to the bachelor scholars in the annexed extract. "Along the wall you see two tables, which, though less carefully provided than the Fellows', are still served with tolerable decency and go through a regular second course instead of the 'sizings.' The occupants of the upper or inner table are men apparently from twenty-two to twenty-six years of age, and wear black gowns with two strings hanging loose in front. If this table has less state than the adjoining one of the Fellows, it has more mirth and brilliancy; many a good joke seems to be going the rounds. These are the Bachelors, most of them Scholars reading for Fellowships, and nearly all of them private tutors. Although Bachelors in Arts, they are considered, both as respects the College and the University, to be in statu pupillari until they become M.A.'s. They pay a small sum in fees nominally for tuition, and are liable to the authority of that mighty man, the Proctor."—Five Years in an Eng. Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 20.
BACHELORSHIP. The state of one who has taken his first degree in a university or college.—Webster.
BACK-LESSON. A lesson which has not been learned or recited; a lesson which has been omitted.
In a moment you may see the yard covered with hurrying groups, some just released from metaphysics or the blackboard, and some just arisen from their beds where they have indulged in the luxury of sleeping over—a luxury, however, which is sadly diminished by the anticipated necessity of making up back-lessons.—Harv. Reg., p. 202.
BALBUS. At Yale College, this term is applied to Arnold's Latin Prose Composition, from the fact of its so frequent occurrence in that work. If a student wishes to inform his fellow-student that he is engaged on Latin Prose Composition, he says he is studying Balbus. In the first example of this book, the first sentence reads, "I and Balbus lifted up our hands," and the name Balbus appears in almost every exercise.
BALL UP. At Middlebury College, to fail at recitation or examination.
BANDS. Linen ornaments, worn by professors and clergymen when officiating; also by judges, barristers, &c., in court. They form a distinguishing mark in the costume of the proctors of the English universities, and at Cambridge, the questionists, on admission to their degrees, are by the statutes obliged to appear in them.—Grad. ad Cantab.
BANGER. A club-like cane or stick; a bludgeon. This word is one of the Yale vocables.
The Freshman reluctantly turned the key,
Expecting a Sophomore gang to see,
Who, with faces masked and bangers stout, Had come resolved to smoke him out. Yale Lit. Mag., Vol. XX. p. 75.
BARBER. In the English universities, the college barber is often employed by the students to write out or translate the impositions incurred by them. Those who by this means get rid of their impositions are said to barberize them.
So bad was the hand which poor Jenkinson wrote, that the many impositions which he incurred would have kept him hard at work all day long; so he barberized them, that is, handed them over to the college barber, who had always some poor scholars in his pay. This practice of barberizing is not uncommon among a certain class of men.—Collegian's Guide, p. 155.
BARNEY. At Harvard College, about the year 1810, this word was used to designate a bad recitation. To barney was to recite badly.
BARNWELL. At Cambridge, Eng., a place of resort for characters of bad report.
One of the most "civilized" undertook to banter me on my non-appearance in the classic regions of Barnwell.—Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 31.
BARRING-OUT SPREE. At Princeton College, when the students find the North College clear of Tutors, which is about once a year, they bar up the entrance, get access to the bell, and ring it.
In the "Life of Edward Baines, late M.P. for the Borough of Leeds," is an account of a barring-out, as managed at the grammar school at Preston, England. It is related in Dickens's Household Words to this effect. "His master was pompous and ignorant, and smote his pupils liberally with cane and tongue. It is not surprising that the lads learnt as much from the spirit of their master as from his preceptions and that one of those juvenile rebellions, better known as old than at present as a 'barring-out,' was attempted. The doors of the school, the biographer narrates, were fastened with huge nails, and one of the younger lads was let out to obtain supplies of food for the garrison. The rebellion having lasted two or three days, the mayor, town-clerk, and officers were sent for to intimidate the offenders. Young Baines, on the part of the besieged, answered the magisterial summons to surrender, by declaring that they would never give in, unless assured of full pardon and a certain length of holidays. With much good sense, the mayor gave them till the evening to consider; and on his second visit the doors were found open, the garrison having fled to the woods of Penwortham. They regained their respective homes under the cover of night, and some humane interposition averted the punishment they had deserved."—Am. Ed. Vol. III. p. 415.
BATTEL. To stand indebted on the college books at Oxford for provisions and drink from the buttery.
Eat my commons with a good stomach, and battled with discretion. —Puritan, Malone's Suppl. 2, p. 543.
Many men "battel" at the rate of a guinea a week. Wealthier men, more expensive men, and more careless men, often "battelled" much higher.—De Quincey's Life and Manners, p. 274.
Cotgrave says, "To battle (as scholars do in Oxford) être debteur an collège pour ses vivres." He adds, "Mot usé seulement