A Collection of College Words and Customs

by Benjamin Homer Hall

CHUMSHIP. The state of occupying a room in company with another; chumming.

In the seventeenth century, in Milton's time, for example, (about 1624,) and for more than sixty years after that era, the practice of chumship prevailed.—De Quincey's Life and Manners, p. 251.

CIVILIAN. A student of the civil law at the university.—Graves.
Webster.

CLARIAN. In the University of Cambridge, Eng., a member of Clare
Hall.

CLASS. A number of students in a college or school, of the same standing, or pursuing the same studies. In colleges, the students entering or becoming members the same year, and pursuing the same studies.—Webster.

In the University of Oxford, class is the division of the candidates who are examined for their degrees according to their rate of merit. Those who are entitled to this distinction are denominated Classmen, answering to the optimes and wranglers in the University of Cambridge.—Crabb's Tech. Dict.

See an interesting account of "reading for a first class," in the
Collegian's Guide, Chap. XII.

CLASS. To place in ranks or divisions students that are pursuing the same studies; to form into a class or classes.—Webster.

CLASS BOOK. Within the last thirty or forty years, a custom has arisen at Harvard College of no small importance in an historical point of view, but which is principally deserving of notice from the many pleasing associations to which its observance cannot fail to give rise. Every graduating class procures a beautiful and substantial folio of many hundred pages, called the Class Book, and lettered with the year of the graduation of the class. In this a certain number of pages is allotted to each individual of the class, in which he inscribes a brief autobiography, paying particular attention to names and dates. The book is then deposited in the hands of the Class Secretary, whose duty it is to keep a faithful record of the marriage, birth of children, and death of each of his classmates, together with their various places of residence, and the offices and honors to which each may have attained. This information is communicated to him by letter by his classmates, and he is in consequence prepared to answer any inquiries relative to any member of the class. At his death, the book passes into the hands of one of the Class Committee, and at their death, into those of some surviving member of the class; and when the class has at length become extinct, it is deposited on the shelves of the College Library.

The Class Book also contains a full list of all persons who have at any time been members of the class, together with such information as can be gathered in reference to them; and an account of the prizes, deturs, parts at Exhibitions and Commencement, degrees, etc., of all its members. Into it are also copied the Class Oration, Poem, and Ode, and the Secretary's report of the class meeting, at which the officers were elected. It is also intended to contain the records of all future class meetings, and the accounts of the Class Secretary, who is ex officio Class Treasurer and Chairman of the Class Committee. By virtue of his office of Class Treasurer, he procures the Cradle for the successful candidate, and keeps in his possession the Class Fund, which is sometimes raised to defray the accruing expenses of the Class in future times.