A Collection of College Words and Customs | Page 7

in the law of Massachusetts on this subject." The word is obsolete in England, is obsolescent at our colleges, and is very seldom heard in the other senses given above.
By the twelfth statute, a student incurs ... no penalty by declaiming or attempting to declaim without having his piece previously approbated.--MS. Note to Laws of Harvard College, 1798.
Observe their faces as they enter, and you will perceive some shades there, which, if they are approbated and admitted, will be gone when they come out.--Scenes and Characters in College, New Haven, 1847, p. 18.
How often does the professor whose duty it is to criticise and approbate the pieces for this exhibition wish they were better! --Ibid., p. 195.
I was approbated by the Boston Association, I suspect, as a person well known, but known as an anomaly, and admitted in charity.--Memorial of John S. Popkin, D.D., p. lxxxv.
ASSES' BRIDGE. The fifth proposition of the first book of Euclid is called the Asses' Bridge, or rather "Pons Asinorum," from the difficulty with which many get over it.
The Asses' Bridge in Euclid is not more difficult to be got over, nor the logarithms of Napier so hard to be unravelled, as many of Hoyle's Cases and Propositions.--The Connoisseur, No. LX.
After Mr. Brown had passed us over the "Asses' Bridge," without any serious accident, and conducted us a few steps further into the first book, he dismissed us with many compliments.--Alma Mater, Vol. I. p. 126.
I don't believe he passed the Pons Asinorum without many a halt and a stumble.--Ibid., Vol. I. p. 146.
ASSESSOR. In the English universities, an officer specially appointed to assist the Vice-Chancellor in his court.--Cam. Cal.
AUCTION. At Harvard College, it was until within a few years customary for the members of the Senior Class, previously to leaving college, to bring together in some convenient room all the books, furniture, and movables of any kind which they wished to dispose of, and put them up at public auction. Everything offered was either sold, or, if no bidders could be obtained, given away.
AUDIT. In the University of Cambridge, England, a meeting of the Master and Fellows to examine or audit the college accounts. This is succeeded by a feast, on which occasion is broached the very best ale, for which reason ale of this character is called "audit ale."--Grad. ad Cantab.
This use of the word thirst made me drink an extra bumper of "Audit" that very day at dinner.--Alma Mater, Vol. I. p. 3.
After a few draughts of the Audit, the company disperse.--Ibid. Vol. I. p. 161.
AUTHORITY. "This word," says Mr. Pickering, in his Vocabulary, "is used in some of the States, in speaking collectively of the Professors, &c. of our colleges, to whom the government of these institutions is intrusted."
Every Freshman shall be obliged to do any proper errand or message for the Authority of the College.--Laws Middlebury Coll., 1804, p. 6.
AUTOGRAPH BOOK. It is customary at Yale College for each member of the Senior Class, before the close of his collegiate life, to obtain, in a book prepared for that purpose, the signatures of the President, Professors, Tutors, and of all his classmates, with anything else which they may choose to insert. Opposite the autographs of the college officers are placed engravings of them, so far as they are obtainable; and the whole, bound according to the fancy of each, forms a most valuable collection of agreeable mementos.
When news of his death reached me. I turned to my book of classmate autographs, to see what he had written there, and to read a name unusually dear.--Scenes and Characters in College, New Haven, 1847, p. 201.
AVERAGE BOOK. At Harvard College, a book in which the marks received by each student, for the proper performance of his college duties, are entered; also the deductions from his rank resulting from misconduct. These unequal data are then arranged in a mean proportion, and the result signifies the standing which the student has held for a given period.
In vain the Prex's grave rebuke, Deductions from the average book. MS. Poem, W.F. Allen, 1848.

B.
B.A. An abbreviation of Baccalaureus Artium, Bachelor of Arts. The first degree taken by a student at a college or university. Sometimes written A.B., which is in accordance with the proper Latin arrangement. In American colleges this degree is conferred in course on each member of the Senior Class in good standing. In the English universities, it is given to the candidate who has been resident at least half of each of ten terms, i.e. during a certain portion of a period extending over three and a third years, and who has passed the University examinations.
The method of conferring the degree of B.A. at Trinity College, Hartford, is peculiar. The President takes the hands of each candidate in his own as he confers the