PIT. In the University of Cambridge, the place in St. Mary's
Church reserved for the accommodation of Masters of Arts and
Fellow-Commoners is jocularly styled the pit.—Grad. ad
Cantab.
PLACE. In the older American colleges, the situation of a student in the class of which he was a member was formerly decided, in a measure, by the rank and circumstances of his family; this was called placing. The Hon. Paine Wingate, who graduated at Harvard College in the year 1759, says, in one of his letters to Mr. Peirce:—
"You inquire of me whether any regard was paid to a student on account of the rank of his parent, otherwise than his being arranged or placed in the order of his class?
"The right of precedence on every occasion is an object of importance in the state of society. And there is scarce anything which more sensibly affects the feelings of ambition than the rank which a man is allowed to hold. This excitement was generally called up whenever a class in college was placed. The parents were not wholly free from influence; but the scholars were often enraged beyond bounds for their disappointment in their place, and it was some time before a class could be settled down to an acquiescence in their allotment. The highest and the lowest in the class was often ascertained more easily (though not without some difficulty) than the intermediate members of the class, where there was room for uncertainty whose claim was best, and where partiality, no doubt, was sometimes indulged. But I must add, that, although the honor of a place in the class was chiefly ideal, yet there were some substantial advantages. The higher part of the class had generally the most influential friends, and they commonly had the best chambers in College assigned to them. They had also a right to help themselves first at table in Commons, and I believe generally, wherever there was occasional precedence allowed, it was very freely yielded to the higher of the class by those who were below.
"The Freshman Class was, in my day at college, usually placed (as it was termed) within six or nine months after their admission. The official notice of this was given by having their names written in a large German text, in a handsome style, and placed in a conspicuous part of the College Buttery, where the names of the four classes of undergraduates were kept suspended until they left College. If a scholar was expelled, his name was taken from its place; or if he was degraded (which was considered the next highest punishment to expulsion), it was moved accordingly. As soon as the Freshmen were apprised of their places, each one took his station according to the new arrangement at recitation, and at Commons, and in the Chapel, and on all other occasions. And this arrangement was never afterward altered, either in College or in the Catalogue, however the rank of their parents might be varied. Considering how much dissatisfaction was often excited by placing the classes (and I believe all other colleges had laid aside the practice), I think that it was a judicious expedient in Harvard to conform to the custom of putting the names in alphabetical order, and they have accordingly so remained since the year 1772."—Peirce's Hist. of Harv. Univ., pp. 308-811.
In his "Annals of Yale College," Ebenezer Baldwin observes on the subject: "Doctor Dwight, soon after his election to the Presidency [1795], effected various important alterations in the collegiate laws. The statutes of the institution had been chiefly adopted from those of European universities, where the footsteps of monarchical regulation were discerned even in the walks of science. So difficult was it to divest the minds of wise men of the influence of venerable follies, that the printed catalogues of students, until the year 1768, were arranged according to respectability of parentage."—p. 147.
See DEGRADATION.
PLACET. Latin; literally, it is pleasing. In the University of Cambridge, Eng., the term in which an affirmative vote is given in the Senate-House.
PLUCK. In the English universities, a refusal of testimonials for a degree.
The origin of this word is thus stated in the Collegian's Guide: "At the time of conferring a degree, just as the name of each man to be presented to the Vice-Chancellor is read out, a proctor walks once up and down, to give any person who can object to the degree an opportunity of signifying his dissent, which is done by plucking or pulling the proctor's gown. Hence another and more common mode of stopping a degree, by refusing the testamur, or certificate of proficiency, is also called plucking."—p. 203.