A Collection of College Words and Customs Part 15

COCHLEAUREATUS, _pl._ COCHLEAUREATI. Latin, _cochlear_, a spoon, and _laureatus_, laurelled. A free translation would be, _one honored with a spoon_.

At Yale College, the wooden spoon is given to the one whose name comes last on the list of appointees for the Junior Exhibition.

The recipient of this honor is designated _cochleaureatus_.

Now give in honor of the spoon Three cheers, long, loud, and hearty, And three for every honored June In _coch-le-au-re-a-ti_.

_Songs of Yale_, 1853, p. 37.

See WOODEN SPOON.

COFFIN. At the University of Vermont, a boot, especially a large one. A companion to the word HUMMEL, q.v.

COLLAR. At Yale College, "to come up with; to seize; to lay hold on; to appropriate."--_Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. XIV. p. 144.

By that means the oration marks will be effectually _collared_, with scarce an effort.--_Yale Banger_, Oct. 1848.

COLLECTION. In the University of Oxford, a college examination, which takes place at the end of every term before the Warden and Tutor.

Read some Herodotus for _Collections_.--_The Etonian_, Vol. II. p.

348.

The College examinations, called _collections_, are strictly private.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 139.

COLLECTOR. A Bachelor of Arts in the University of Oxford, who is appointed to superintend some scholastic proceedings in Lent.--_Todd_.

The Collectors, who are two in number, Bachelors of Arts, are appointed to collect the names of _determining_ bachelors, during Lent. Their office begins and ends with that season.--_Guide to Oxford_.

COLLECTORSHIP. The office of a _collector_ in the University of Oxford.--_Todd_.

This Lent the _collectors_ ceased from entertaining the Bachelors by advice and command of the proctors; so that now they got by their _collectorships_, whereas before they spent about 100_l._, besides their gains, on clothes or needless entertainments.--_Life of A. Wood_, p. 286.

COLLEGE. Latin, _collegium_; _con_ and _lego_, to gather. In its primary sense, a collection or a.s.sembly; hence, in a general sense, a collection, a.s.semblage, or society of men, invested with certain powers and rights, performing certain duties, or engaged in some common employment or pursuit.

1. An establishment or edifice appropriated to the use of students who are acquiring the languages and sciences.

2. The society of persons engaged in the pursuits of literature, including 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 inst.i.tution 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 dest.i.tute 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 a.s.sociated 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 princ.i.p.al 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 pa.s.sed 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 cla.s.s 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 pa.s.s 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 inst.i.tution so called; an inhabitant of a college.--_Johnson_.

COLLEGIATE. Pertaining to a college; as, _collegiate_ studies.

2. Containing a college; inst.i.tuted 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., Ma.s.s._, 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_.