A Collection of College Words and Customs Part 81

He sits down with all of them, about forty or fifty, to a most glorious _spread_, ordered from the college cook, to be served up in the most swell style possible.--_Ibid._, p. 129.

SPROUT. Any _branch_ of education is in student phrase a _sprout_.

This peculiar use of the word is said to have originated at Yale.

SPRUNG. The positive, of which _tight_ is the comparative, and _drunk_ the superlative.

"One swallow makes not spring," the poet sung, But many swallows make the fast man _sprung_.

_MS. Poem_, by F.E. Felton.

See TIGHT.

SPY. In some of the American colleges, it is a prevailing opinion among the students, that certain members of the different cla.s.ses are encouraged by the Faculty to report what they have seen or ascertained in the conduct of their cla.s.smates, contrary to the laws of the college. Many are stigmatized as _spies_ very unjustly, and seldom with any sufficient reason.

SQUIRT. At Harvard College, a showy recitation is denominated a _squirt_; the ease and quickness with which the words flow from the mouth being a.n.a.logous to the ease and quickness which attend the sudden ejection of a stream of water from a pipe. Such a recitation being generally perfect, the word _squirt_ is very often used to convey that idea. Perhaps there is not, in the whole vocabulary of college cant terms, one more expressive than this, or that so easily conveys its meaning merely by its sound. It is mostly used colloquially.

2. A foppish young fellow; a whipper-snapper.--_Bartlett_.

If they won't keep company with _squirts_ and dandies, who's going to make a monkey of himself?--_Maj. Jones's Courtship_, p. 160.

SQUIRT. To make a showy recitation.

He'd rather slump than _squirt_.

_Poem before Y.H._, p. 9.

Webster has this word with the meaning, "to throw out words, to let fly," and marks it as out of use.

SQUIRTINESS. The quality of being showy.

SQUIRTISH. Showy; dandified.

It's my opinion that these slicked up _squirtish_ kind a fellars ain't particular hard baked, and they always goes in for aristocracy notions.--_Robb, Squatter Life_, p. 73.

SQUIRTY. Showy; fond of display; gaudy.

Applied to an oration which is full of bombast and grandiloquence; to a foppish fellow; to an apartment gayly adorned, &c.

And should they "sc.r.a.pe" in prayers, because they are long And rather "_squirty_" at times.

_Childe Harvard_, p. 58.

STAMMBOOK. German. A remembrance-book; an alb.u.m. Among the German students stammbooks were kept formerly, as commonly as autograph-books now are among American students.

But do procure me the favor of thy Rapunzel writing something in my _Stammbook_.--_Howitt's Student Life of Germany_, Am. ed., p.

242.

STANDING. Academical age, or rank.

Of what _standing_ are you? I am a Senior Soph.--_Gradus ad Cantab._

Her mother told me all about your love, And asked me of your prospects and your _standing_.

_Collegian_, 1830, p. 267.

_To stand for an honor_; i.e. to offer one's self as a candidate for an honor.

STAR. In triennial catalogues a star designates those who have died. This sign was first used with this signification by Mather, in his Magnalia, in a list prepared by him of the graduates of Harvard College, with a fanciful allusion, it is supposed, to the abode of those thus marked.

Our tale shall be told by a silent _star_, On the page of some future Triennial.

_Poem before Cla.s.s of 1849, Harv. Coll._, p. 4.

We had only to look still further back to find the _stars_ cl.u.s.tering more closely, indicating the rapid flight of the spirits of short-lived tenants of earth to another sphere.--_Memories of Youth and Manhood_, Vol. II. p. 66.

STAR. To mark a star opposite the name of a person, signifying that he is dead.

Six of the sixteen Presidents of our University have been inaugurated in this place; and the oldest living graduate, the Hon. Paine Wingate of Stratham, New Hampshire, who stands on the Catalogue a lonely survivor amidst the _starred_ names of the dead, took his degree within these walls.--_A Sermon on leaving the Old Meeting-house in Cambridge_, by Rev. William Newell, Dec.

1, 1833, p. 22.

Among those fathers were the venerable remnants of cla.s.ses that are _starred_ to the last two or three, or it may be to the last one.--_Scenes and Characters in College_, p. 6.

STATEMENT OF FACTS. At Yale College, a name given to a public meeting called for the purpose of setting forth the respective merits of the two great societies in that inst.i.tution, viz.

"Linonia" and "The Brothers in Unity." There are six orators, three from Linonia and three from the Brothers,--a Senior, a Junior, and the President of each society. The Freshmen are invited by handsomely printed cards to attend the meeting, and they also have the best seats reserved for them, and are treated with the most intense politeness. As now conducted, the _Statement of Facts_ is any thing rather than what is implied by the name. It is simply an opportunity for the display of speaking talent, in which wit and sarcasm are considered of far greater importance than truth. The Freshmen are rarely swayed to either side. In nine cases out of ten they have already chosen their society, and attend the statement merely from a love of novelty and fun. The custom grew up about the year 1830, after the practice of dividing the students alphabetically between the two societies had fallen into disuse. Like all similar customs, the Statement of Facts has reached its present college importance by gradual growth. At first the societies met in a small room of the College, and the statements did really consist of the facts in the case. Now the exercises take place in a public hall, and form a kind of intellectual tournament, where each society, in the presence of a large audience, strives to get the advantage of the other.

From a newspaper account of the observance of this literary festival during the present year, the annexed extract is taken.

"For some years, students, as they have entered College, have been permitted to choose the society with which they would connect themselves, instead of being alphabetically allotted to one of the two. This method has made the two societies earnest rivals, and the accession of each cla.s.s to College creates an earnest struggle to see which shall secure the greater number of members. The electioneering campaign, as it is termed, begins when the students come to be examined for admission to College, that is, about the time of the Commencement, and continues through a week or two of the first term of the next year. Each society, of course, puts forth the most determined efforts to conquer. It selects the most prominent and popular men of the Senior Cla.s.s as President, and arrangements are so made that a Freshman no sooner enters town than he finds himself unexpectedly surrounded by hosts of friends, willing to do anything for him, and especially instruct him in his duty with reference to the selection of societies. For the benefit of those who do not yield to this private electioneering, this Statement of Facts is made. It amounts, however, to little more than a 'good time,' as there are very few who wait to be influenced by 'facts' they know will be so distorted. The advocates of each society feel bound, of course, to present its affairs in the most favorable aspect. Disputants are selected, generally with regard to their ability as speakers, one from the Junior and one from the Senior Cla.s.s. The Presidents of each society also take part."--_N.Y. Daily Times_, Sept. 22, 1855.

As an ill.u.s.tration of the eloquence and ability which is often displayed on these occasions, the following pa.s.sages have been selected from the address of John M. Holmes of Chicago, Ill., the Junior orator in behalf of the Brothers in Unity at the Statement of Facts held September 20th, 1855.

"Time forbids me to speak at length of the ill.u.s.trious alumni of the Brothers; of Professor Thatcher, the favorite of college,--of Professor Silliman, the Nestor of American literati,--of the revered head of this inst.i.tution, President Woolsey, first President of the Brothers in 1820,--of Professor Andrews, the author of the best dictionary of the Latin language,--of such divines as Dwight and Murdock,--of Bacon and Bushnell, the pride of New England,--or of the great names of Clayton, Badger, Calhoun, Ellsworth, and John Davis,--all of whom were nurtured and disciplined in the halls of the Brothers, and there received the Achillean baptism that made their lives invulnerable. But perhaps I err in claiming such men as the peculium of the Brothers,--they are the common heritage of the human race.

'Such names as theirs are pilgrim shrines, Shrines to no code nor creed confined, The Delphian vales, the Palestines, The Meccas of the mind.'

"But there are other names which to overlook would be worse than negligence,--it would be ingrat.i.tude unworthy of a son of Yale.

"At the head of that glorious host stands the venerable form of Joel Barlow, who, in addition to his various civil and literary distinctions, was the father of American poetry. There too is the intellectual brow of Webster, not indeed the great defender of the Const.i.tution, but that other Webster, who spent his life in the perpetuation of that language in which the Const.i.tution is embalmed, and whose memory will be coeval with that language to the latest syllable of recorded time. Beside Webster on the historic canvas appears the form of the only Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States that ever graduated at this College,--Chief Justice Baldwin, of the cla.s.s of 1797. Next to him is his cla.s.smate, a patriarchal old man who still lives to bless the a.s.sociations of his youth,--who has consecrated the n.o.blest talents to the n.o.blest earthly purposes,--the pioneer of Western education,--the apostle of Temperance,--the life-long teacher of immortality,--and who is the father of an ill.u.s.trious family whose genius has magnetized all Christendom. His cla.s.smate is Lyman Beecher. But a year ago in the neighboring city of Hartford there was a monument erected to another Brother in Unity,--the philanthropist who first introduced into this country the system of instructing deaf mutes. More than a thousand unfortunates bowed around his grave. And although there was no audible voice of eulogy or thankfulness, yet there were many tears. And grateful thoughts went up to heaven in silent benediction for him who had unchained their faculties, and given them the priceless treasures of intellectual and social communion. Thomas H. Gallaudet was a Brother in Unity.

"And he who has been truly called the most learned of poets and the most poetical of learned men,--whose ascent to the heaven of song has been like the pathway of his own broad sweeping eagle,--J.G. Percival,--is a Brother in Unity. And what shall I say of Morse? Of Morse, the wonder-worker, the world-girdler, the s.p.a.ce-destroyer, the author of the n.o.blest invention whose glory was ever concentrated in a single man, who has realized the fabulous prerogative of Olympian Jove, and by the instantaneous intercommunication of thought has accomplished the work of ages in binding together the whole civilized world into one great Brotherhood in Unity?