HUMANITY, pl. HUMANITIES. In the plural signifying grammar, rhetoric, the Latin and Greek languages, and poetry; for teaching which there are professors in the English and Scotch universities. —Encyc.
HUMMEL. At the University of Vermont, a foot, especially a large one.
HYPHENUTE. At Princeton College, the aristocratic or would-be aristocratic in dress, manners, &c., are called Hyphenutes. Used both as a noun and adjective. Same as [Greek: Oi Aristoi] q.v.
I.
ILLUMINATE. To interline with a translation. Students illuminate a book when they write between the printed lines a translation of the text. Illuminated books are preferred by good judges to ponies or hobbies, as the text and translation in them are brought nearer to one another. The idea of calling books thus prepared illuminated, is taken partly from the meaning of the word illuminate, to adorn with ornamental letters, substituting, however, in this case, useful for ornamental, and partly from one of its other meanings, to throw light on, as on obscure subjects.
ILLUSTRATION. That which elucidates a subject. A word used with a peculiar application by undergraduates in the University of Cambridge, Eng.
I went back,… and did a few more bits of illustration, such as noting down the relative resources of Athens and Sparta when the Peloponnesian war broke out, and the sources of the Athenian revenue.—Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 51.
IMPOSITION. In the English universities, a supernumerary exercise enjoined on students as a punishment.
Minor offences are punished by rustication, and those of a more trivial nature by fines, or by literary tasks, here termed Impositions.—Oxford Guide, p. 149.
Literary tasks called impositions, or frequent compulsive attendances on tedious and unimproving exercises in a college hall.—T. Warton, Minor Poems of Milton, p. 432.