A Collection of College Words and Customs

by Benjamin Homer Hall

SITTING OF THE SOLSTICES. It was customary, in the early days of Harvard College, for the graduates of the year to attend in the recitation-room on Mondays and Tuesdays, for three weeks, during the month of June, subject to the examination of all who chose to visit them. This was called the Sitting of the Solstices, because it happened in midsummer, or at the time of the summer solstice. The time was also known as the Weeks of Visitation.

SIZAR, SISAR, SIZER. In the University of Cambridge, Eng., a student of the third rank, or that next below that of a pensioner, who eats at the public table after the fellows, free of expense. It was formerly customary for every fellow-commoner to have his sizar, to whom he allowed a certain portion of commons, or victuals and drink, weekly, but no money; and for this the sizar was obliged to do him certain services daily.

A lower order of students were called sub-sizars. In reference to this class, we take the following from the Gentleman's Magazine, 1787, p. 1146. "At King's College, they were styled hounds. The situation of a sub-sizar being looked upon in so degrading a light probably occasioned the extinction of the order. But as the sub-sizars had certain assistances in return for their humiliating services, and as the poverty of parents stood in need of such assistances for their sons, some of the sizars undertook the same offices for the same advantages. The master's sizar, therefore, waited upon him for the sake of his commons, etc., as the sub-sizar had done; and the other sizars did the same office to the fellows for the advantage of the remains of their commons. Thus the term sub-sizar became forgotten, and the sizar was supposed to be the same as the servitor. But if a sizar did not choose to accept of these assistances upon such degrading terms, he dined in his own room, and was called a proper sizar. He wore the same gown as the others, and his tutorage, etc. was no higher; but there was nothing servile in his situation."—"Now, indeed, all (or almost all) the colleges in Cambridge have allowed the sizars every advantage of the remains of the fellows' commons, etc., though they have very liberally exempted them from every servile office."

Another writer in the same periodical, 1795, p. 21, says: The sizar "is very much like the scholars at Westminster, Eton, &c., who are on the foundation; and is, in a manner, the half-boarder in private academies. The name was derived from the menial services in which he was occasionally engaged; being in former days compelled to transport the plates, dishes, sizes, and platters, to and from the tables of his superiors."

A writer in the Encyclopædia Britannica, at the close of the article SIZAR, says of this class: "But though their education is thus obtained at a less expense, they are not now considered as a menial order; for sizars, pensioner-scholars, and even sometimes fellow-commoners, mix together with the utmost cordiality."

"Sizars," says Bristed, "answer to the beneficiaries of American colleges. They receive pecuniary assistance from the college, and dine gratis after the fellows on the remains of their table. These 'remains' are very liberally construed, the sizar always having fresh vegetables, and frequently fresh tarts and puddings."—Five Years in an Eng. Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 14.

SIZE. Food and drink from the buttery, aside from the regular dinner at commons.

"A size" says Minsheu, "is a portion of bread or drinke, it is a farthing which schollers in Cambridge have at the buttery; it is noted with the letter S. as in Oxford with the letter Q. for halfe a farthing; and whereas they say in Oxford, to battle in the Buttery Booke, i.e. to set downe on their names what they take in bread, drinke, butter, cheese, &c.; so, in Cambridge, they say, to size, i.e. to set downe their quantum, i.e. how much they take on their name in the Buttery Booke."

In the Poems of the Rev. Dr. Dodd, a size of bread is described as "half a half-penny 'roll.'" Grose, also, in the Provincial Glossary, says "it signifies the half part of a halfpenny loaf, and comes from scindo, I cut."

In the Encyclopædia Britannica is the following explanation of this term. "A size of anything is the smallest quantity of that thing which can be thus bought" [i.e. by students in addition to their commons in the hall]; "two sizes, or a part of beef, being nearly equal to what a young person will eat of that dish to his dinner, and a size of ale or beer being equal to half an English pint." It would seem, then, that formerly a size was a small plateful of any eatable; the word now means anything had by students at dinner over and above the usual commons.