He was speaking of the "moon hoax" which "_gummed_" so many
learned philosophers.--_Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. XIV. p. 189.
GUMMATION. A trick; raillery.
Our reception to college ground was by no means the most
hospitable, considering our unacquaintance with the manners of the
place, for, as poor "Fresh," we soon found ourselves subject to
all manner of sly tricks and "_gummations_" from our predecessors,
the Sophs.--_A Tour through College_, Boston, 1832, p. 13.
GYP. A cant term for a servant at Cambridge, England, at _scout_
is used at Oxford. Said to be a sportive application of [Greek:
gyps], a vulture.--_Smart_.
The word _Gyp_ very properly characterizes them.--_Gradus ad
Cantab._, p. 56.
And many a yawning _gyp_ comes slipshod in,
To wake his master ere the bells begin.
_The College_, in _Blackwood's Mag._, May, 1849.
The Freshman, when once safe through his examination, is first
inducted into his rooms by a _gyp_, usually recommended to him by
his tutor. The gyp (from [Greek: gyps], vulture, evidently a
nickname at first, but now the only name applied to this class of
persons) is a college servant, who attends upon a number of
students, sometimes as many as twenty, calls them in the morning,
brushes their clothes, carries for them parcels and the queerly
twisted notes they are continually writing to one another, waits
at their parties, and so on. Cleaning their boots is not in his
branch of the profession; there is a regular brigade of college
shoeblacks.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p.
14.
It is sometimes spelled _Jip_, though probably by mistake.
My _Jip_ brought one in this morning; faith! and told me I was
focussed.--_Gent. Mag._, 1794, p. 1085.
_H_.
HALF-LESSON. In some American colleges on certain occasions the
students are required to learn only one half of the amount of an
ordinary lesson.
They promote it [the value of distinctions conferred by the
students on one another] by formally acknowledging the existence
of the larger debating societies in such acts as giving
"_half-lessons_" for the morning after the Wednesday night
debates.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 386.
HALF-YEAR. In the German universities, a collegiate term is called
a _half-year_.
The annual courses of instruction are divided into summer and
winter _half-years_.--_Howitt's Student Life of Germany_, Am. Ed.,
pp. 34, 35.
HALL. A college or large edifice belonging to a collegiate
institution.--_Webster_.
2. A collegiate body in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
In the former institution a hall differs from a college, in that
halls are not incorporated; consequently, whatever estate or other
property they possess is held in trust by the University. In the
latter, colleges and halls are synonymous.--_Cam. and Oxf.
Calendars_.
"In Cambridge," says the author of the Collegian's Guide, "the
halls stand on the same footing as the colleges, but at Oxford
they did not, in my time, hold by any means so high a place in
general estimation. Certainly those halls which admit the outcasts
of other colleges, and of those alone I am now speaking, used to
be precisely what one would expect to find them; indeed, I had
rather that a son of mine should forego a university education
altogether, than that he should have so sorry a counterfeit of
academic advantages as one of these halls affords."--p. 172.
"All the Colleges at Cambridge," says Bristed, "have equal
privileges and rights, with the solitary exception of King's, and
though some of them are called _Halls_, the difference is merely
one of name. 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. I dined at one
of those establishments; it was very like an officers' mess. The
men had their own wine, and did not wear their gowns, and the only
Don belonging to the Hall was not present at table. There was a
tradition of a chapel belonging to the concern, but no one present
knew where it was. This Hall seemed to be a small Botany Bay of
both Universities, its members made up of all sorts of incapables
and incorrigibles."--_Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, pp.
140, 141.