RECENTES. Latin for the English FRESHMEN. Consult Clap's History of Yale College, 1766, p. 124.
RECITATION. In American colleges and schools, the rehearsal of a lesson by pupils before their instructor.—Webster.
RECITATION-ROOM. The room where lessons are rehearsed by pupils before their instructor.
In the older American colleges, the rooms of the Tutors were formerly the recitation-rooms of the classes. At Harvard College, the benches on which the students sat when reciting were, when not in use, kept in piles, outside of the Tutors' rooms. When the hour of recitation arrived, they would carry them into the room, and again return them to their places when the exercise was finished. One of the favorite amusements of the students was to burn these benches; the spot selected for the bonfire being usually the green in front of the old meeting-house, or the common.
RECITE. Transitively, to rehearse, as a lesson to an instructor.
2. Intransitively, to rehearse a lesson. The class will recite at eleven o'clock.—Webster.
This word is used in both forms in American seminaries.
RECORD OF MERIT. At Middlebury College "a class-book is kept by each instructor, in which the character of each student's recitation is noted by numbers, and all absences from college exercises are minuted. Demerit for absences and other irregularities is also marked in like manner, and made the basis of discipline. At the close of each term, the average of these marks is recorded, and, when desired, communicated to parents and guardians." This book is called the record of merit.—Cat. Middlebury Coll., 1850-51, p. 17.
RECTOR. The chief elective officer of some universities, as in France and Scotland. The same title was formerly given to the president of a college in New England, but it is not now in use.—Webster.
The title of Rector was given to the chief officer of Yale College at the time of its foundation, and was continued until the year 1745, when, by "An Act for the more full and complete establishment of Yale College in New Haven," it was changed, among other alterations, to that of President.—Clap's Annals of Yale College, p. 47.