"The charter of 1745 imposed another test in the form of a political oath upon all governing officers in the College. They were required before they undertook the execution of their trusts, or within three months after, 'publicly in the College hall [to] take the oaths, and subscribe the declaration, appointed by an act of Parliament made in the first year of George the First, entitled, An Act for the further security of his Majesty's person and government, and the succession of the Crown in the heirs of the late Princess Sophia, being Protestants, and for extinguishing the hopes of the pretended Prince of Wales, and his open and secret abettors.' We cannot find the motive for prescribing this oath of allegiance and abjuration in the Protestant zeal which was enkindled by the second Pretender's movements in England,—for, although belonging to this same year 1745, these movements were subsequent to the charter,—but rather in the desire of removing suspicion of disloyalty, and conforming the practice in the College to that required by the law in the English universities. This oath was taken until it became an unlawful one, when the State assumed complete sovereignty at the Revolution. For some years afterwards, the officers took the oath of fidelity to the State of Connecticut, and I believe that the last instance of this occurred at the very end of the eighteenth century."—p. 40.
In the Diary of President Stiles, under the date of July 8, 1778, is the annexed entry, in which is given the formula of the oath required by the State:—
"The oath of fidelity administered to me by the Hon. Col. Hamlin, one of the Council of the State of Connecticut, at my inauguration.
"'You, Ezra Stiles, do swear by the name of the ever-living God, that you will be true and faithful to the State of Connecticut, as a free and independent State, and in all things do your duty as a good and faithful subject of the said State, in supporting the rights, liberties, and privileges of the same. So help you God.'
"This oath, substituted instead of that of allegiance to the King by the Assembly of Connecticut, May, 1777, to be taken by all in this State; and so it comes into use in Yale College."—Woolsey's Hist. Discourse, Appendix, p. 117.
[Greek: Hoi Aristoi.] Greek; literally, the bravest. At Princeton College, the aristocrats, or would-be aristocrats, are so called.
[Greek: Hoi Polloi.] Greek; literally, the many.
See POLLOI.
OLD BURSCH. A name given in the German universities to a student during his fourth term. Students of this term are also designated Old Ones.
As they came forward, they were obliged to pass under a pair of naked swords, held crosswise by two Old Ones.—Longfellow's Hyperion, p. 110.