A Collection of College Words and CustomsHall, Benjamin Homer
History
A Collection of College Words and Customs
Hall, Benjamin Homer
College students -- United States -- Language; English language -- United States -- Slang; Slang
As an illustration of the severity with which the laws on this
subject were enforced, it may not be inappropriate to insert the
annexed account from the Sketches of Yale College:--"The servile
requisition of making obeisance to the officers of College within
a prescribed distance was common, not only to Yale, but to all
kindred institutions throughout the United States. Some young men
were found whose high spirit would not brook the degrading law
imposed upon them without some opposition, which, however, was
always ineffectual. The following anecdote, related by Hon.
Ezekiel Bacon, in his Recollections of Fifty Years Since, although
the scene of its occurrence was in another college, yet is thought
proper to be inserted here, as a fair sample of the
insubordination caused in every institution by an enactment so
absurd and degrading. In order to escape from the requirements of
striking his colors and doffing his chapeau when within the
prescribed striking distance from the venerable President or the
dignified tutors, young Ellsworth, who afterwards rose to the
honorable rank of Chief Justice of the United States, and to many
other elevated stations in this country, and who was then a
student there, cut off entirely the brim portion of his hat,
leaving of it nothing but the crown, which he wore in the form of
a skull-cap on his head, putting it under his arm when he
approached their reverences. Being reproved for his perversity,
and told that this was not a hat within the meaning and intent of
the law, which he was required to do his obeisance with by
removing it from his head, he then made bold to wear his skull-cap
into the Chapel and recitation-room, in presence of the authority.
Being also then again reproved for wearing his hat in those
forbidden and sacred places, he replied that he had once supposed
that it was in truth a veritable hat, but having been informed by
his superiors that it was _no hat_ at all, he had ventured to come
into their presence as he supposed with his head uncovered by that
proscribed garment. But the dilemma was, as in his former
position, decided against him; and no other alternative remained
to him but to resume his full-brimmed beaver, and to comply
literally with the enactments of the collegiate pandect."--pp.
179, 180.
MAN WHO IS JUST GOING OUT. At the University of Cambridge, Eng.,
the popular name of a student who is in the last term of his
collegiate course.
MARK. The figure given to denote the quality of a recitation. In
most colleges, the merit of each performance is expressed by some
number of a series, in which a certain fixed number indicates the
highest value.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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