A Collection of College Words and Customs | Page 4

conferring the honors of college.
The scholar-dress that once arrayed him, The charm Admitto te ad gradum, With touch of parchment can refine, And make the veriest coxcomb shine, Confer the gift of tongues at once, And fill with sense the vacant dunce. Trumbull's Progress of Dullness, Ed. 1794, Exeter, p. 12.
ADMONISH. In collegiate affairs, to reprove a member of a college for a fault, either publicly or privately; the first step of college discipline. It is followed by of or against; as, to admonish of a fault committed, or against committing a fault.
ADMONITION. Private or public reproof; the first step of college discipline. In Harvard College, both private and public admonition subject the offender to deductions from his rank, and the latter is accompanied in most cases with official notice to his parents or guardian.--See Laws Univ. at Cam., Mass., 1848, p. 21. Laws Yale Coll., 1837, p. 23.
Mr. Flynt, for many years a tutor in Harvard College, thus records an instance of college punishment for stealing poultry:--"November 4th, 1717. Three scholars were publicly admonished for thievery, and one degraded below five in his class, because he had been before publicly admonished for card-playing. They were ordered by the President into the middle of the Hall (while two others, concealers of the theft, were ordered to stand up in their places, and spoken to there). The crime they were charged with was first declared, and then laid open as against the law of God and the House, and they were admonished to consider the nature and tendency of it, with its aggravations; and all, with them, were warned to take heed and regulate themselves, so that they might not be in danger of so doing for the future; and those who consented to the theft were admonished to beware, lest God tear them in pieces, according to the text. They were then fined, and ordered to make restitution twofold for each theft."--Quincy's Hist. Harv. Univ., Vol. I. p. 443.
ADOPTED SON. Said of a student in reference to the college of which he is or was a member, the college being styled his alma mater.
There is something in the affection of our Alma Mater which changes the nature of her adopted sons; and let them come from wherever they may, she soon alters them and makes it evident that they belong to the same brood.--Harvard Register, p. 377.
ADVANCE. The lesson which a student prepares for the first time is called the advance, in contradistinction to the review.
Even to save him from perdition, He cannot get "the advance," forgets "the review." Childe Harvard, p. 13.
?GROTAL. Latin, ?grotus, sick. A certificate of illness. Used in the Univ. of Cam., Eng.
A lucky thought; he will get an "?grotal," or medical certificate of illness.--Household Words, Vol. II. p. 162.
?GROTAT. Latin; literally, he is sick. In the English universities, a certificate from a doctor or surgeon, to the effect that a student has been prevented by illness from attending to his college duties, "though, commonly," says the Gradus ad Cantabrigiam, "the real complaint is much more serious; viz. indisposition of the mind! ?grotat animo magis quam corpore." This state is technically called ?gritude, and the person thus affected is said to be ?ger.--The Etonian, Vol. II. pp. 386, 387.
To prove sickness nothing more is necessary than to send to some medical man for a pill and a draught, and a little bit of paper with ?grotat on it, and the doctor's signature. Some men let themselves down off their horses, and send for an ?grotat on the score of a fall.--Westminster Rev., Am. Ed., Vol. XXXV. p. 235.
During this term I attended another course of Aristotle lectures, --but not with any express view to the May examination, which I had no intention of going in to, if it could be helped, and which I eventually escaped by an ?grotat from my physician.--Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 198.
Mr. John Trumbull well describes this state of indisposition in his Progress of Dullness:--
"Then every book, which ought to please, Stirs up the seeds of dire disease; Greek spoils his eyes, the print's so fine, Grown dim with study, and with wine; Of Tully's Latin much afraid, Each page he calls the doctor's aid; While geometry, with lines so crooked, Sprains all his wits to overlook it. His sickness puts on every name, Its cause and uses still the same; 'Tis toothache, colic, gout, or stone, With phases various as the moon, But tho' thro' all the body spread, Still makes its cap'tal seat, the head. In all diseases, 'tis expected, The weakest parts be most infected." Ed. 1794,
Part I. p. 8.
?GROTAT DEGREE. One who is sick or so indisposed that he cannot attend the Senate-House examination, nor consequently acquire any honor, takes what is