INCEPTOR. One who has proceeded to the degree of M.A., but who, not enjoying all the privileges of an M.A. until the Commencement, is in the mean time termed an Inceptor.
Used in the English universities, and formerly at Harvard College.
And, in case any of the Sophisters, Questionists, or Inceptors fail in the premises required at their hands … they shall be deferred to the following year.—Laws of 1650, in Quincy's Hist. Harv. Univ., Vol. I. p. 518.
The Admissio Inceptorum was as follows: "Admitto te ad secundum gradum in artibus pro more Academiarum in Angliâ: tibique trado hunc librum unâ cum potestate publice profitendi, ubicunque ad hoc munus publicè evocatus fueris."—Ibid., Vol. I. p. 580.
INDIAN SOCIETY. At the Collegiate Institute of Indiana, a society of smokers was established, in the year 1837, by an Indian named Zachary Colbert, and called the Indian Society. The members and those who have been invited to join the society, to the number of sixty or eighty, are accustomed to meet in a small room, ten feet by eighteen; all are obliged to smoke, and he who first desists is required to pay for the cigars smoked at that meeting.
INDIGO. At Dartmouth College, a member of the party called the
Blues. The same as a BLUE, which see.
The Howes, years ago, used to room in Dartmouth Hall, though none room there now, and so they made up some verses. Here is one:—
"Hurrah for Dartmouth Hall!
Success to every student
That rooms in Dartmouth Hall,
Unless he be an Indigo,
Then, no success at all."
The Dartmouth, Vol. IV. p. 117.
INITIATION. Secret societies exist in almost all the colleges in the United States, which require those who are admitted to pass through certain ceremonies called the initiation. This fact is often made use of to deceive Freshmen, upon their entrance into college, who are sometimes initiated into societies which have no existence, and again into societies where initiation is not necessary for membership.
A correspondent from Dartmouth College writes as follows: "I believe several of the colleges have various exercises of initiating Freshmen. Ours is done by the 'United Fraternity,' one of our library societies (they are neither of them secret), which gives out word that the initiation is a fearful ceremony. It is simply every kind of operation that can be contrived to terrify, and annoy, and make fun of Freshmen, who do not find out for some time that it is not the necessary and serious ceremony of making them members of the society."