A Collection of College Words and Customs Part 7

2. A correspondent from the same college says: "If a student is unable to answer a question in the cla.s.s, and declares himself unprepared, he also is a '_bolter_.'"

BONFIRE. The making of bonfires, by students, is not an unfrequent occurrence at many of our colleges, and is usually a demonstration of dissatisfaction, or is done merely for the sake of the excitement. It is accounted a high offence, and at Harvard College is prohibited by the following law:--"In case of a bonfire, or unauthorized fireworks or illumination, any students crying fire, sounding an alarm, leaving their rooms, shouting or clapping from the windows, going to the fire or being seen at it, going into the college yard, or a.s.sembling on account of such bonfire, shall be deemed aiding and abetting such disorder, and punished accordingly."--_Laws_, 1848, _Bonfires_.

A correspondent from Bowdoin College writes: "Bonfires occur regularly twice a year; one on the night preceding the annual State Fast, and the other is built by the Freshmen on the night following the yearly examination. A pole some sixty or seventy feet long is raised, around which brush and tar are heaped to a great height. The construction of the pile occupies from four to five hours."

Not ye, whom midnight cry ne'er urged to run In search of fire, when fire there had been none; Unless, perchance, some pump or hay-mound threw Its _bonfire_ l.u.s.tre o'er a jolly crew.

_Harvard Register_, p. 233.

BOOK-KEEPER. At Harvard College, students are allowed to go out of town on Sat.u.r.day, after the exercises, but are required, if not at evening prayers, to enter their names before 10 P.M. with one of the officers appointed for that purpose. Students were formerly required to report themselves before 8 P.M., in winter, and 9, in summer, and the person who registered the names was a member of the Freshman Cla.s.s, and was called the _book-keeper_.

I strode over the bridge, with a rapidity which grew with my vexation, my distaste for wind, cold, and wet, and my anxiety to reach my goal ere the hour appointed should expire, and the _book-keeper's_ light should disappear from his window; "For while his light holds out to burn, The vilest sinner may return."--_Collegian_, p. 225.

See FRESHMAN, COLLEGE.

BOOK-WORK. Among students at Cambridge, Eng., all mathematics that can be learned verbatim from books,--all that are not problems.--_Bristed_.

He made a good fight of it, and ... beat the Trinity man a little on the _book-work_.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed.

2d, p. 96.

The men are continually writing out _book-work_, either at home or in their tutor's rooms.--_Ibid._, p. 149.

BOOT-FOX. This name was at a former period given, in the German universities, to a fox, or a student in his first half-year, from the fact of his being required to black the boots of his more advanced comrades.

BOOTLICK. To fawn upon; to court favor.

Scorns the acquaintance of those he deems beneath him; refuses to _bootlick_ men for their votes.--_The Parthenon_, Union Coll., Vol. I. p. 6.

The "Wooden Spoon" exhibition pa.s.sed off without any such hubbub, except where the pieces were of such a character as to offend the delicacy and modesty of some of those crouching, fawning, _bootlicking_ hypocrites.--_The Gallinipper_, Dec. 1849.

BOOTLICKER. A student who seeks or gains favor from a teacher by flattery or officious civilities; one who curries favor. A correspondent from Union College writes: "As you watch the students more closely, you will perhaps find some of them particularly officious towards your teacher, and very apt to linger after recitation to get a clearer knowledge of some pa.s.sage. They are _Bootlicks_, and that is known as _Bootlicking_; a reproach, I am sorry to say, too indiscriminately applied." At Yale, and _other colleges_, a tutor or any other officer who informs against the students, or acts as a spy upon their conduct, is also called a _bootlick_.

Three or four _bootlickers_ rise.--_Yale Banger_, Oct. 1848.

The rites of Wooden Spoons we next recite, When _bootlick_ hypocrites upraised their might.

_Ibid._, Nov. 1849.

Then he arose, and offered himself as a "_bootlick_" to the Faculty.--_Yale Battery_, Feb. 14, 1850.

BOOTS. At the College of South Carolina it is customary to present the most unpopular member of a cla.s.s with a pair of handsome red-topped boots, on which is inscribed the word BEAUTY. They were formerly given to the ugliest person, whence the inscription.

BORE. A tiresome person or unwelcome visitor, who makes himself obnoxious by his disagreeable manners, or by a repet.i.tion of visits.--_Bartlett_.

A person or thing that wearies by iteration.--_Webster_.

Although the use of this word is very general, yet it is so peculiarly applicable to the many annoyances to which a collegian is subjected, that it has come by adoption to be, to a certain extent, a student term. One writer cla.s.ses under this t.i.tle "text-books generally; the Professor who marks _slight_ mistakes; the familiar young man who calls continually, and when he finds the door fastened demonstrates his verdant curiosity by revealing an inquisitive countenance through the ventilator."--_Soph.o.m.ore Independent_, Union College, Nov. 1854.

In college parlance, prayers, when the morning is cold or rainy, are a _bore_; a hard lesson is a _bore_; a dull lecture or lecturer is a _bore_; and, _par excellence_, an unwelcome visitor is a _bore_ of _bores_. This latter personage is well described in the following lines:--

"Next comes the bore, with visage sad and pale, And tortures you with some lugubrious tale; Relates stale jokes collected near and far, And in return expects a choice cigar; Your brandy-punch he calls the merest sham, Yet does not _scruple_ to partake a _dram_.

His prying eyes your secret nooks explore; No place is sacred to the college bore.

Not e'en the letter filled with Helen's praise, Escapes the sight of his unhallowed gaze; Ere one short hour its silent course has flown, Your Helen's charms to half the cla.s.s are known.

Your books he takes, nor deigns your leave to ask, Such forms to him appear a useless task.

When themes unfinished stare you in the face, Then enters one of this accursed race.

Though like the Angel bidding John to write, Frail ------ form uprises to thy sight, His stupid stories chase your thoughts away, And drive you mad with his unwelcome stay.

When he, departing, creaks the closing door, You raise the Grecian chorus, [Greek: kikkabau]."[02]

_MS. Poem_, F.E. Felton, Harv. Coll.

BOS. At the University of Virginia, the desserts which the students, according to the statutes of college, are allowed twice per week, are respectively called the _Senior_ and _Junior Bos_.

BOSH. Nonsense, trash, [Greek: phluaria]. An English Cantab's expression.--_Bristed_.

But Spriggins's peculiar forte is that kind of talk which some people irreverently call "_bosh_."--_Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. XX. p.

259.

BOSKY. In the cant of the Oxonians, being tipsy.--_Grose_.

Now when he comes home fuddled, alias _Bosky_, I shall not be so unmannerly as to say his Lordship ever gets drunk.--_The Sizar_, cited in _Gradus ad Cantab._, pp. 20, 21.

BOWEL. At Harvard College, a student in common parlance will express his dest.i.tution or poverty by saying, "I have not a _bowel_." The use of the word with this signification has arisen, probably, from a jocular reference to a quaint Scriptural expression.

BRACKET. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., the result of the final examination in the Senate-House is published in lists signed by the examiners. In these lists the names of those who have been examined are "placed in individual order of merit." When the rank of two or three men is the same, their names are inclosed in _brackets_.

At the close of the course, and before the examination is concluded, there is made out a new arrangement of the cla.s.ses called the _Brackets_. These, in which each is placed according to merit, are hung upon the pillars in the Senate-House.--_Alma Mater_, Vol. II. p. 93.

As there is no provision in the printed lists for expressing the number of marks by which each man beats the one next below him, and there may be more difference between the twelfth and thirteenth than between the third and twelfth, it has been proposed to extend the use of the _brackets_ (which are now only employed in cases of literal equality between two or three men), and put together six, eight, or ten, whose marks are nearly equal.

--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 227.

BRACKET. In a general sense, to place in a certain order.

I very early in the Soph.o.m.ore year gave up all thoughts of obtaining high honors, and settled down contentedly among the twelve or fifteen who are _bracketed_, after the first two or three, as "English Orations."--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng.

Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 6.

There remained but two, _bracketed_ at the foot of the cla.s.s.--_Ibid._, p. 62.