A Collection of College Words and Customs Part 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 inst.i.tutions 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 Cla.s.s, 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 cla.s.smates, 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 cla.s.smate 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 Cla.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.ses 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 t.i.tles always correspond to the _English_, not to the Latin of the t.i.tles, _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 Cla.s.s 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 s.p.a.ce of three years. 2. By extraordinary diploma, granted to individuals wholly unconnected with the University. The former cla.s.s 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 cla.s.sics, mathematics, and philosophy, are declared to be qualified. In the German universities, the t.i.tle "Doctor Philosophiae" has long been subst.i.tuted 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 va.s.sals; from them it was transferred to the lowest cla.s.s of ecclesiastics; and thence again, by Pope Gregory the Ninth to the universities. In reference to the derivation of this word, the military cla.s.ses 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 cla.s.ses, 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 pa.s.sage, 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 Ma.s.s., in the early days of Harvard College, the writer says "But 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 a Batuendo, a business that carries beating in it: So that, Batualii fuerunt vocati, quia jam quasi _batuissent_ c.u.m adversario, ac ma.n.u.s conseruissent; hoc est, publice disputa.s.sent, atque ita peritiae suae 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 t.i.tle 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 s.e.x, 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 t.i.tle 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 antic.i.p.ated 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 Soph.o.m.ore 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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.sic 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 d.i.c.kens'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 a.s.sured 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.