A Collection of College Words and Customs Part 26

I find my eyes in doleful case, By _digging_ until midnight.--_Harv. Reg._, p. 312.

I've had an easy time in College, and enjoyed well the "otium c.u.m dignitate,"--the learned leisure of a scholar's life,--always despised _digging_, you know.--_Ibid._, p. 194.

How often after his day of _digging_, when he comes to lay his weary head to rest, he finds the cruel sheets giving him no admittance.--_Ibid._, p. 377.

Hopes to hit the mark By _digging_ nightly into matters dark.

_Cla.s.s Poem, Harv. Coll._, 1835.

He "makes up" for past "_digging_."

_Iadma Poem, Harv. Coll._, 1850.

DIGNITY. At Bowdoin College, "_Dignity_," says a correspondent, "is the name applied to the regular holidays, varying from one half-day per week, during the Freshman year, up to four in the Senior."

DIKED. At the University of Virginia, one who is dressed with more than ordinary elegance is said to be _diked out_. Probably corrupted from the word _decked_, or the nearly obsolete _dighted_.

DIPLOMA. Greek, [Greek: diploma], from [Greek: diploo], to _double_ or fold. Anciently, a letter or other composition written on paper or parchment, and folded; afterward, any letter, literary monument, or public doc.u.ment. A letter or writing conferring some power, authority, privilege, or honor. Diplomas are given to graduates of colleges on their receiving the usual degrees; to clergymen who are licensed to exercise the ministerial functions; to physicians who are licensed to practise their profession; and to agents who are authorized to transact business for their princ.i.p.als. A diploma, then, is a writing or instrument, usually under seal, and signed by the proper person or officer, conferring merely honor, as in the case of graduates, or authority, as in the case of physicians, agents, &c.--_Webster_.

DISCIPLINE. The punishments which are at present generally adopted in American colleges are warning, admonition, the letter home, suspension, rustication, and expulsion. Formerly they were more numerous, and their execution was attended with great solemnity.

"The discipline of the College," says President Quincy, in his History of Harvard University, "was enforced and sanctioned by daily visits of the tutors to the chambers of the students, fines, admonitions, confession in the hall, publicly asking pardon, degradation to the bottom of the cla.s.s, striking the name from the College list, and expulsion, according to the nature and aggravation of the offence."--Vol. I. p. 442.

Of Yale College, President Woolsey in his Historical Discourse says: "The old system of discipline may be described in general as consisting of a series of minor punishments for various petty offences, while the more extreme measure of separating a student from College seems not to have been usually adopted until long forbearance had been found fruitless, even in cases which would now be visited in all American colleges with speedy dismission.

The chief of these punishments named in the laws are imposition of school exercises,--of which we find little notice after the first foundation of the College, but which we believe yet exists in the colleges of England;[20] deprivation of the privilege of sending Freshmen upon errands, or extension of the period during which this servitude should be required beyond the end of the Freshman year; fines either specified, of which there are a very great number in the earlier laws, or arbitrarily imposed by the officers; admonition and degradation. For the offence of mischievously ringing the bell, which was very common whilst the bell was in an exposed situation over an entry of a college building, students were sometimes required to act as the butler's waiters in ringing the bell for a certain time."--pp. 46, 47.

See under t.i.tles ADMONITION, CONFESSION, CORPORAL PUNISHMENT, DEGRADATION, FINES, LETTER HOME, SUSPENSION, &c.

DISCOMMUNE. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., to prohibit an undergraduate from dealing with any tradesman or inhabitant of the town who has violated the University privileges or regulations.

The right to exercise this power is vested in the Vice-Chancellor.

Any tradesman who allows a student to run in debt with him to an amount exceeding $25, without informing his college tutor, or to incur any debt for wine or spirituous liquors without giving notice of it to the same functionary during the current quarter, or who shall take any promissory note from a student without his tutor's knowledge, is liable to be _discommuned_.--_Lit. World_, Vol. XII. p. 283.

In the following extracts, this word appears under a different orthography.

There is always a great demand for the rooms in college. Those at lodging-houses are not so good, while the rules are equally strict, the owners being solemnly bound to report all their lodgers who stay out at night, under pain of being "_discommonsed_," a species of college excommunication.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 81.

Any tradesman bringing a suit against an Undergraduate shall be "_discommonsed_"; i.e. all the Undergraduates are forbidden to deal with him.--_Ibid._, p. 83.

This word is allied to the law term "discommon," to deprive of the privileges of a place.

DISMISS. To separate from college, for an indefinite or limited time.

DISMISSION. In college government, dismission is the separation of a student from a college, for an indefinite or for a limited time, at the discretion of the Faculty. It is required of the dismissed student, on applying for readmittance to his own or any other cla.s.s, to furnish satisfactory testimonials of good conduct during his separation, and to appear, on examination, to be well qualified for such readmission.--_College Laws_.

In England, a student, although precluded from returning to the university whence he has been dismissed, is not hindered from taking a degree at some other university.

DISPENSATION. In universities and colleges, the granting of a license, or the license itself, to do what is forbidden by law, or to omit something which is commanded. Also, an exemption from attending a college exercise.

The business of the first of these houses, or the oligarchal portion of the const.i.tution [the House of Congregation], is chiefly to grant degrees, and pa.s.s graces and _dispensations_.--_Oxford Guide_, Ed. 1847, p. xi.

All the students who are under twenty-one years of age may be excused from attending the private Hebrew lectures of the Professor, upon their producing to the President a certificate from their parents or guardians, desiring a _dispensation_.--_Laws Harv. Coll._, 1798, p. 12.

DISPERSE. A favorite word with tutors and proctors; used when speaking to a number of students unlawfully collected. This technical use of the word is burlesqued in the following pa.s.sages.

Minerva conveys the Freshman to his room, where his cries make such a disturbance, that a proctor enters and commands the blue-eyed G.o.ddess "_to disperse_." This order she reluctantly obeys.--_Harvardiana_, Vol. IV. p. 23.

And often grouping on the chains, he hums his own sweet verse, Till Tutor ----, coming up, commands him to _disperse_.

_Poem before Y.H. Harv. Coll._, 1849.

DISPUTATION. An exercise in colleges, in which parties reason in opposition to each other, on some question proposed.--_Webster_.

Disputations were formerly, in American colleges, a part of the exercises on Commencement and Exhibition days.

DISPUTE. To contend in argument; to reason or argue in opposition.

--_Webster_.

The two Senior cla.s.ses shall _dispute_ once or twice a week before the President, a Professor, or the Tutor.--_Laws Yale Coll._, 1837, p. 15.

DIVINITY. A member of a theological school is often familiarly called a _Divinity_, abbreviated for a Divinity student.

One of the young _Divinities_ pa.s.sed Straight through the College yard.

_Childe Harvard_, p. 40.

DIVISION. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., each of the three terms is divided into two parts. _Division_ is the time when this part.i.tion is made.

After "_division_" in the Michaelmas and Lent terms, a student, who can a.s.sign a good plea for absence to the college authorities, may go down and take holiday for the rest of the time.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 63.

DOCTOR. One who has pa.s.sed all the degrees of a faculty, and is empowered to practise and teach it; as, a _doctor_ in divinity, in physic, in law; or, according to modern usage, a person who has received the highest degree in a faculty. The degree of _doctor_ is conferred by universities and colleges, as an honorary mark of literary distinction. It is also conferred on physicians as a professional degree.--_Webster_.

DOCTORATE. The degree of a doctor.--_Webster_.

The first diploma for a doctorate in divinity given in America was presented under the seal of Harvard College to Mr. Increase Mather, the President of that inst.i.tution, in the year 1692.--_Peirce's Hist. Harv. Univ._, App., p. 68.

DODGE. A trick; an artifice or stratagem for the purpose of deception. Used often with _come_; as, "_to come a dodge_ over him."