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
ADJOURN. At Bowdoin College, _adjourns_ are the occasional
holidays given when a Professor unexpectedly absents himself from
recitation.
ADJOURN. At the University of Vermont, this word as a verb is used
in the same sense as is the verb BOLT at Williams College; e.g.
the students _adjourn_ a recitation, when they leave the
recitation-room _en masse_, despite the Professor.
ADMISSION. The act of admitting a person as a member of a college
or university. The requirements for admission are usually a good
moral character on the part of the candidate, and that he shall be
able to pass a satisfactory examination it certain studies. In
some colleges, students are not allowed to enter until they are of
a specified age.--_Laws Univ. at Cam., Mass._, 1848, p. 12. _Laws
Tale Coll._, 1837, p. 8.
The requisitions for entrance at Harvard College in 1650 are given
in the following extract. "When any scholar is able to read Tully,
or such like classical Latin author, _extempore_, and make and
speak true Latin in verse and prose _suo (ut aiunt) Marte_, and
decline perfectly the paradigms of nouns and verbs in the Greek
tongue, then may he be admitted into the College, nor shall any
claim admission before such qualifications."--_Quincy's Hist.
Harv. Univ._, Vol. I. p. 515.
ADMITTATUR. Latin; literally, _let him be admitted_. In the older
American colleges, the certificate of admission given to a student
upon entering was called an _admittatur_, from the word with which
it began. At Harvard no student was allowed to occupy a room in
the College, to receive the instruction there given, or was
considered a member thereof, until he had been admitted according
to this form.--_Laws Harv. Coll._, 1798.
Referring to Yale College, President Wholsey remarks on this
point: "The earliest known laws of the College belong to the years
1720 and 1726, and are in manuscript; which is explained by the
custom that every Freshman, on his admission, was required to
write off a copy of them for himself, to which the _admittatur_ of
the officers was subscribed."--_Hist. Disc, before Grad. Yale
Coll._, 1850, p. 45.
He travels wearily over in visions the term he is to wait for his
initiation into college ways and his _admittatur_.--_Harvard
Register_, p. 377.
I received my _admittatur_ and returned home, to pass the vacation
and procure the college uniform.--_New England Magazine_, Vol.
III. p. 238.
It was not till six months of further trial, that we received our
_admittatur_, so called, and became matriculated.--_A Tour through
College_, 1832, p. 13.
ADMITTO TE AD GRADUM. _I admit you to a degree_; the first words
in the formula used in conferring the honors of college.
The scholar-dress that once arrayed him,
The charm _Admitto te ad gradum_,
With touch of parchment can refine,
And make the veriest coxcomb shine,
Confer the gift of tongues at once,
And fill with sense the vacant dunce.
_Trumbull's Progress of Dullness_, Ed. 1794, Exeter, p. 12.
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