AUCTION. At Harvard College, it was until within a few years customary for the members of the Senior Class, previously to leaving college, to bring together in some convenient room all the books, furniture, and movables of any kind which they wished to dispose of, and put them up at public auction. Everything offered was either sold, or, if no bidders could be obtained, given away.
AUDIT. In the University of Cambridge, England, a meeting of the Master and Fellows to examine or audit the college accounts. This is succeeded by a feast, on which occasion is broached the very best ale, for which reason ale of this character is called "audit ale."—Grad. ad Cantab.
This use of the word thirst made me drink an extra bumper of "Audit" that very day at dinner.—Alma Mater, Vol. I. p. 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 institutions 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 Class, 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 classmates, 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 classmate 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.