A Collection of College Words and Customs

by Benjamin Homer Hall

"No Undergraduate shall wear his hat in the College yard, when any of the Governors of the College are there; and no Bachelor shall wear his hat when the President is there.

"No Freshman shall speak to a Senior with his hat on; or have it on in a Senior's chamber, or in his own, if a Senior be there.

"All the Undergraduates shall treat those in the government of the College with respect and deference; particularly, they shall not be seated without leave in their presence; they shall be uncovered when they speak to them, or are spoken to by them."

Such were the laws of the last century, and their observance was enforced with the greatest strictness. After the Revolution, the spirit of the people had become more republican, and about the year 1796, "considering the spirit of the times and the extreme difficulty the executive must encounter in attempting to enforce the law prohibiting students from wearing hats in the College yard," a vote passed repealing it.—Quincy's Hist. Harv. Univ., Vol. II. p. 278.

On this subject, Professor Sidney Willard, with reference to the time of the presidency of Joseph Willard at Harvard College, during the latter part of the last century, remarks: "Outward tokens of respect required to be paid to the immediate government, and particularly to the President, were attended with formalities that seemed to be somewhat excessive; such, for instance, as made it an offence for a student to wear his hat in the College yard, or enclosure, when the President was within it. This, indeed, in the fulness of the letter, gradually died out, and was compromised by the observance only when the student was so near, or in such a position, that he was likely to be recognized. Still, when the students assembled for morning and evening prayer, which was performed with great constancy by the President, they were careful to avoid a close proximity to the outer steps of the Chapel, until the President had reached and passed within the threshold. This was a point of decorum which it was pleasing to witness, and I never saw it violated."—Memories of Youth and Manhood, 1855, Vol. I. p. 132.

"In connection with the subject of discipline," says President Woolsey, in his Historical Discourse before the Graduates of Yale College, "we may aptly introduce that of the respect required by the officers of the College, and of the subordination which younger classes were to observe towards older. The germ, and perhaps the details, of this system of college manners, are to be referred back to the English universities. Thus the Oxford laws require that juniors shall show all due and befitting reverence to seniors, that is, Undergraduates to Bachelors, they to Masters, Masters to Doctors, as well in private as in public, by giving them the better place when they are together, by withdrawing out of their way when they meet, by uncovering the head at the proper distance, and by reverently saluting and addressing them."

After citing the law of Harvard College passed in 1734, which is given above, he remarks as follows. "Our laws of 1745 contain the same identical provisions. These regulations were not a dead letter, nor do they seem to have been more irksome than many other college restraints. They presupposed originally that the college rank of the individual towards whom respect is to be shown could be discovered at a distance by peculiarities of dress; the gown and the wig of the President could be seen far beyond the point where features and gait would cease to mark the person."—pp. 52, 53.

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.