College hall

“ When they reach the door, each man must undergo the searching scrutiny of the door-keeper, usually disguised as an Indian, to avoid being recognized by a college officer, should one chance to be in the crowd, and no one is allowed to enter unless he is known.
"By the time the hour of the exercises has arrived, the hall is densely packed with undergraduates and professional students. The President, who is a non-appointment man, and probably the poorest scholar in the class, sits on a stage with his associate professors. ”

“ It means a great school of debate, a college that grants no degrees. It gives me a sadness that is not akin to pain, to hear a young person designate a building as Lyceum Hall, using the word as if it were Grampian Hall or Hamilton Hall, having no glorious, clear conception of what the name of the hall signified to the early community. Tradesmen, farmers, professional men, themselves readers and thinkers, above all restless and eager disputants would meet night after night to discuss the unselfish problems of life. ”

“ A week after college opened for the spring term, classes were meeting in the new building. During that first week, offices and classes had been scattered all over the campus,—in the Society houses, in the basements of dormitories, the Art Building, the Chemistry Building, the Gymnasium, the basement of the Library, the Observatory, the Stone Hall Botany Laboratories, Billings Hall; all had opened their doors wide. The two hundred and sixteen residents of old College Hall had all been housed on the campus ”

“ In the centre of the hall was a huge plate-warmer, elaborately worked in brass with the college arms. Founders and benefactors were seen, or suggested, on all sides; their arms gleamed from the windows in all the glories of stained glass; and their faces peered out from the massive gilt frames on the walls, as though their shadows loved to linger about the spot that had been benefited by their substance. At the further end of the hall a deep bay-window threw its painted light upon a dais, along which stretched the table for the Dons; Masters and Bachelors occupied side-tables ”

“ They must eat in a big dining room or hall, with oak beams across the ceiling, and the stained glass in the windows, and with a shield or tablet here or there upon the wall, to remind them between times of the men who went before them and left a name worthy of the memory of the college. If a student is to get from his college what it ought to give him, a college dormitory, with the life in common that it brings, is his absolute right. A university that fails to give it to him is cheating him. ”

“ Before entering, I must give the reader an idea of the internal arrangement of the noble old Hall, [78] which in beauty and size excels most of the college halls in Oxford or Cambridge. At the east end is a raised dais, on which is the “High table,” where the Dons dine in Election week. Along each side are rows of tables. Those on the north side, allotted to the Præfects, were called, “Tub, Middle, and Junior Mess,” respectively. The others, when occupied, being each presided over by a Candlekeeper, were called respectively senior, second, and so on to junior “End.” ”

“ My college is one of the smallest in the University. Last night in Hall I sate next a distinguished man, who is, moreover, very accessible and pleasant. He unfolded to me his desires for the University. He would like to amalgamate all the small colleges into groups, so as to have about half-a-dozen colleges in all. He said, and evidently thought, that little colleges are woefully circumscribed and petty places; that most of the better men go to the two or three leading colleges, while the little establishments are like small backwaters out of the main stream. ”

“ Other similar foundations were soon created: the King’s Scholars (later incorporated as King’s Hall) in 1317, Michael-House in 1324, Clare in 1325, Pembroke in 1347, Gonville in 1348, Trinity Hall in 1350, and Corpus Christi in 1352. Every new college that was established provided fresh definite ties with the locality, and rendered less likely the break-up of the University and the scattering of its members—a serious risk to which in early days it was always subject. ”

“ Graduate’s Hall is a massive brown stone building, presenting the general appearance of a feudal castle. It is, in fact, the stronghold of the college, and must be taken several times during the course—it is the examination hall. Next comes the Library, a gothic building with low wings on either side. It is a repository for some one hundred and seventy-five thousand volumes. The Art School is one of the most expensive buildings on the campus. ”

“ But the Halls at Oxford, of which there are five, are not incorporated bodies, and have no vote in University matters, indeed are but a sort of boarding-houses at which students may remain until it is time for them to take a degree. ”

“ In Harvard College as soon as the parts for an Exhibition or Commencement are assigned, the subjects and the names of the performers are given to some member of one of the higher classes, who proceeds to read them to the students from a window of one of the buildings, after proposing the usual "three cheers" for each of the classes, designating them by the years in which they are to graduate. As the name of each person who has a part assigned him is read, the students respond with cheers. ”

“ In almost every college, commons have been abolished, and with them have departed the discords, dissatisfactions, and open revolts, of which they were so often the cause.
See BEVER.
COMMORANTES IN VILLA. Latin; literally, those abiding in town. In the University of Cambridge, Eng., the designation of Masters of Arts, and others of higher degree, who, residing within the precincts of the University, enjoy the privilege of being members of the Senate, without keeping their names on the college boards. —Gradus ad Cantab. ”

“ STUDY. A building or an apartment devoted to study or to literary employment.—Webster.
In some of the older American colleges, it was formerly the custom to partition off, in each chamber, two small rooms, where the occupants, who were always two in number, could carry on their literary pursuits. These rooms were called, from this circumstance, studies. Speaking of the first college edifice which was erected at New Haven, Mr. Clap, in his History of Yale College, says: "It made a handsome appearance, and contained near fifty studies in convenient chambers" ”

“ Truly the “pensioners” seem, to the full, aware of their privileges, and of their claims—far less upon our sympathies than upon our gratitude and respect. The college is THEIRS; they look, walk, and talk, in perfect and indisputable consciousness that it is their house, and that those who cross its courts, loiter in its gardens, or view its halls, chapel, and dormitories, are but visitors—graciously admitted, and generously instructed by them. And who will dare to question their right?
The veterans are, as they may well be, proud of their country and their hospital ”

“ These are the 'censores morum' of the University, and their business is to see that the undergraduate members, when no longer under the ken of the head or tutors of their own college, behave seemly when mixing with the townsmen and restrict themselves, as far as may be, to lawful or constitutional and harmless amusements. Their powers extend over a circumference of three miles round the walls of the city. The proctors are easily recognized by their full dress gown of velvet sleeves, and bands-encircled neck."—Oxford Guide, Ed. ”

“ There is always a great demand for the rooms in college. Those at lodging-houses are not so good, while the rules are equally strict, the owners being solemnly bound to report all their lodgers who stay out at night, under pain of being "discommonsed," a species of college excommunication.—Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 81.
Any tradesman bringing a suit against an Undergraduate shall be "discommonsed"; i.e. all the Undergraduates are forbidden to deal with him.—Ibid., p. 83.
This word is allied to the law term "discommon," to deprive of the privileges of a place. ”

“ In another university the president secured the funds for a new library building and this he felt gave him the right to decide on the plans for it and also to select its location on the campus; incidentally, the site selected was next to the athletic field. In another college, the planning of a large lecture hall to be occupied jointly by several departments was turned over to a young architect who had never planned an educational building of any sort. ”

“ In the revised laws of Harvard College, printed in the year 1790, was one for the purpose of introducing examinations, the first part of which is as follows: "To animate the students in the pursuit of literary merit and fame, and to excite in their breasts a noble spirit of emulation, there shall be annually a public examination, in the presence of a joint committee of the Corporation and Overseers, and such other gentlemen as may be inclined to attend it." ”

“ In the University of Virginia, students on entering are sometimes initiated into the ways of college life by very novel and unique ceremonies, an account of which has been furnished by a graduate of that institution. "The first thing, by way of admitting the novitiate to all the mysteries of college life, is to require of him in an official communication, under apparent signature of one of the professors, a written list, tested under oath, of the entire number of his shirts and other necessary articles in his wardrobe. ”

“ All these things tend to give an esprit du corps to the C. L. S. C., and when you carry your diploma and remember your march from gate to goal the other day, you say, “I was present at the graduation of the class of ’82, and I shall go there as often as I can.” What the vision and the experience do for us who come here “The Hall in the Grove” will to some extent do for those who can not come. This enthusiasm will do for our members what the similar element in four years of college discipline and experience do for college students. ”

“ Leonard’s Hall, after having been a hospitium for pilgrims, a home for old ladies (about 1500) , and a college in the University, was now a kind of cross between a master’s house at school, and, as before 1750, a college. We had more liberty than schoolboys, less than English undergraduates. In the Scotch universities the men live scattered, in lodgings, and only recently, at St. Andrews, have they begun to dine together in hall. We had a common roof, common dinners, wore scarlet gowns, possessed football and cricket clubs, and started, of course, a kind of weekly magazine. ”

“ Now the exercises take place in a public hall, and form a kind of intellectual tournament, where each society, in the presence of a large audience, strives to get the advantage of the other.
From a newspaper account of the observance of this literary festival during the present year, the annexed extract is taken.
"For some years, students, as they have entered College, have been permitted to choose the society with which they would connect themselves, instead of being alphabetically allotted to one of the two. ”

“ At Yale College the honors, or, as they are there termed, appointments, are given to a class twice during the course;—upon the merits of the two preceding years, at the end of the first term, Junior; and at the end of the second term, Senior, upon the merits of the whole college course. There are about eight grades of appointments, the lowest of which is the Third Colloquy. Each grade has its own standard, and if a number of students have attained to the same degree, they receive the same appointment. ”

“ The latter is composed of masters of arts of five years' standing, bachelors of divinity, and doctors in the three faculties of two years' standing, and is known as the LOWER HOUSE, or BLACK-HOOD HOUSE, its members wearing black silk hoods. To have a vote in the Senate, the graduate must keep his name on the books of some college (which involves a small annual payment) , or in the list of the commorantes in villâ.—Webster. ”

“ A college denotes not a dwelling but a community: precisely the same distinction is to{64} be drawn between domus and collegium as between monasterium and conventus. Every university domus was intended for a college of scholars, as every religious house was intended for a convent of religious; the transition was easy, though not logical, from “college of the hall of Valense-Marie” to Valence-Marie College, and to-day the word is used indiscriminately to mean both the building and the community. [115]
Clare Hall 1326-1338. ”

“ This arrangement is still found in some of the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, such as those of New College, Christchurch, Wadham and Magdalen, Oxford, and in Trinity College, Cambridge. In private mansions, however, the kitchen and offices have been removed to a greater distance, and the great hall is only used for banquets. ”

“ Its first court has been refaced with new-looking red brick, but the interior, with its luxuriant covering of ivy, is time-worn and venerable. There is, however, not much of any importance. The Hall is, perhaps, the best which is to be found among the smaller colleges, and the spacious double staircase which leads from it to the Combination Room, is a feature of which any college might justly be proud. “Although the staircase, as it exists, is the work of restorers, the detail of the woodwork is excellent, and was doubtless suggested by the fine Renaissance carving at Audley End.” ”

“ The first house of the University, William of Durham’s Hall or University Hall (now University College) , was founded between 1249 and 1292, when its statutes were drawn up. In these statutes are the earliest regulations of the University for dealing with books in its possession. [367] It seems{146} clear that the college enjoyed a library—perhaps of some importance,—with excellent regulations for its use, at the end of the thirteenth century. What is true of University College is true also of nearly all the other colleges. ”