COMPOSUIST. A writer; composer. "This extraordinary word," says Mr. Pickering, in his Vocabulary, "has been much used at some of our colleges, but very seldom elsewhere. It is now rarely heard among us. A correspondent observes, that 'it is used in England among musicians.' I have never met with it in any English publications upon the subject of music."
The word is not found, I believe, in any dictionary of the English tongue.
COMPOUNDER. One at a university who pays extraordinary fees, according to his means, for the degree he is to take. A Grand Compounder pays double fees. See the Customs and Laws of Univ. of Cam., Eng., p. 297.
CONCIO AD CLERUM. A sermon to the clergy. In the English universities, an exercise or Latin sermon, which is required of every candidate for the degree of D.D. Used sometimes in America.
In the evening the "concio ad clerum" will be preached.—Yale
Lit. Mag., Vol. XII. p. 426.
CONDITION. A student on being examined for admission to college, if found deficient in certain studies, is admitted on condition he will make up the deficiency, if it is believed on the whole that he is capable of pursuing the studies of the class for which he is offered. The branches in which he is deficient are called conditions.
Talks of Bacchus and tobacco, short sixes, sines, transitions,
And Alma Mater takes him in on ten or twelve conditions.
Poem before Y.H. Soc., Harv. Coll.
Praying his guardian powers
To assist a poor Sub Fresh at the dread Examination,
And free from all conditions to insure his first vacation.
Poem before Iadma of Harv. Coll.
CONDITION. To admit a student as member of a college, who on being examined has been found deficient in some particular, the provision of his admission being that he will make up the deficiency.
A young man shall come down to college from New Hampshire, with no preparation save that of a country winter-school, shall be examined and "conditioned" in everything, and yet he shall come out far ahead of his city Latin-school classmate.—A Letter to a Young Man who has just entered College, 1849, p. 8.