"The Senate is composed of the Senior Class, and is intended as a
school of parliamentary usages. The officers are a President,
Vice-President, and Secretary, who are chosen once a term. At the
close of the second term, the Junior Class are admitted into the
Senate. They are introduced by a committee of Senators, and are
expected to remain standing and uncovered during the ceremony, the
President and Senators being seated and covered. After a short
address by the President, the old Senators leave the house, and
the Juniors proceed to elect their officers for the third term.
Dr. Thomas C. Reed who was the founder of the Senate, was always
elected President during his connection with the College, but
rarely took his place in the chamber except at the introduction of
the Juniors. The Vice-President for the third term, who takes a
part in the ceremonies of commencement, is considered to hold the
highest honor of the class, and his election is attended with more
excitement than any other in the College."
See COMMENCEMENT CARD; HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
SENATE-HOUSE. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., the building
in which the public business of the University, such as
examinations, the passing of graces, and admission to degrees, is
carried on.--_Cam. Guide_.
SENATUS ACADEMICUS. At Trinity College, Hartford, the _Senatus
Academicus_ consists of two houses, known as the CORPORATION and
the HOUSE OF CONVOCATION, q.v.--_Calendar Trin. Coll._, 1850, p.
6.
SENE. An abbreviation for Senior.
Magnificent Juns, and lazy _Senes_.
_Yale Banger_, Nov. 10, 1846.
A rare young blade is the gallant _Sene_.
_Ibid._, Nov. 1850.
SENIOR. One in the fourth year of his collegiate course at an
American college; originally called _Senior Sophister_. Also one
in the third year of his course at a theological
seminary.--_Webster_.
See SOPHISTER.
SENIOR. Noting the fourth year of the collegiate course in
American colleges, or the third year in theological
seminaries.--_Webster_.
SENIOR BACHELOR. One who is in his third year after taking the
degree of Bachelor of Arts. It is further explained by President
Woolsey, in his Historical Discourse: "Bachelors were called
Senior, Middle, or Junior Bachelors, according to the year since
graduation and before taking the degree of Master."--p. 122.
SENIOR CLASSIC. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., the student
who passes best in the voluntary examination in classics, which
follows the last required examination in the Senate-House.
No one stands a chance for _Senior Classic_ alongside of
him.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 55.
Two men who had been rivals all the way through school and through
college were racing for _Senior Classic_.--_Ibid._, p. 253.
SENIOR FELLOW. At Trinity College, Hartford, the Senior Fellow is
a person chosen to attend the college examinations during the
year.
SENIOR FRESHMAN. The name of the second of the four classes into
which undergraduates are divided at Trinity College, Dublin.
SENIORITY. In the University of Cambridge, Eng., the eight Senior
Fellows and the Master of a college compose what is called the
_Seniority_. Their decisions in all matters are generally
conclusive.
My duty now obliges me, however reluctantly, to bring you before
the _Seniority_.--_Alma Mater_, Vol. I. p. 75.
SENIOR OPTIME. Those who occupy the second rank in honors at the
close of the final examination at the University of Cambridge,
Eng., are denominated _Senior Optimes_.
The Second Class, or that of _Senior Optimes_, is larger in number
[than that of the Wranglers], usually exceeding forty, and
sometimes reaching above sixty. This class contains a number of
disappointments, many who expect to be Wranglers, and some who are
generally expected to be.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng.
Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 228.
The word is frequently abbreviated.
The Pembroker ... had the pleasant prospect of getting up all his
mathematics for a place among the _Senior Ops._--_Ibid._, p. 158.
He would get just questions enough to make him a low _Senior Op._
--_Ibid._, p. 222.
SENIOR ORATION. "The custom of delivering _Senior Orations_," says
a correspondent, "is, I think, confined to Washington and
Jefferson Colleges in Pennsylvania. Each member of the Senior
Class, taking them in alphabetical order, is required to deliver
an oration before graduating, and on such nights as the Faculty
may decide. The public are invited to attend, and the speaking is
continued at appointed times, until each member of the Class has
spoken."
SENIOR SOPHISTER. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., a student
in the third year of his residence is called a Senior Soph or
Sophister.
2. In some American colleges, a member of the Senior Class, i.e.
of the fourth year, was formerly designated a Senior Sophister.
See SOPHISTER.
SENIOR WRANGLER. In the University of Cambridge, Eng., the Senior
Wrangler is the student who passes the best examination in the
Senate-House, and by consequence holds the first place on the
Mathematical Tripos.
The only road to classical honors and their accompanying
emoluments in the University, and virtually in all the Colleges,
except Trinity, is through mathematical honors, all candidates for
the Classical Tripos being obliged as a preliminary to obtain a
place in that mathematical list which is headed by the _Senior
Wrangler_ and tailed by the Wooden Spoon.--_Bristed's Five Years
in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 34.
SEQUESTER. To cause to retire or withdraw into obscurity. In the
following passage it is used in the collegiate sense of _suspend_
or _rusticate_.
Though they were adulti, they were corrected in the College, and
_sequestered_, &c. for a time.--_Winthrop's Journal, by Savage_,
Vol. II. p. 88.
SERVITOR. In the University of Oxford, an undergraduate who is
partly supported by the college funds. _Servitors_ formerly waited
at table, but this is now dispensed with. The order similar to
that of the _servitor_ was at Cambridge styled the order of
_Sub-sizars_. This has been long extinct. The _sizar_ at Cambridge
is at present nearly equivalent to the Oxford _servitor_.--_Gent.
Mag._, 1787, p. 1146. _Brande_.
"It ought to be known," observes De Quincey, "that the class of
'_servitors_,' once a large body in Oxford, have gradually become
practically extinct under the growing liberality of the age. They
carried in their academic dress a mark of their inferiority; they
waited at dinner on those of higher rank, and performed other
menial services, humiliating to themselves, and latterly felt as
no less humiliating to the general name and interests of
learning."--_Life and Manners_, p. 272.
A reference to the cruel custom of "hunting the servitor" is to be
found in Sir John Hawkins's Life of Dr. Johnson, p. 12.
SESSION. At some of the Southern and Western colleges of the
United States, the time during which instruction is regularly
given to the students; a term.
The _session_ commences on the 1st of October, and continues
without interruption until the 29th of June.--_Cat. of Univ. of
Virginia_, 1851, p. 15.
SEVENTY-EIGHTH PSALM. The recollections which cluster around this
Psalm, so well known to all the Alumni of Harvard, are of the most
pleasant nature. For more than a hundred years, it has been sung
at the dinner given on Commencement day at Cambridge, and for more
than a half-century to the tune of St. Martin's. Mr. Samuel
Shapleigh, who graduated at Harvard College in the year 1789, and
who was afterwards its Librarian, on the leaf of a hymn-book makes
a memorandum in reference to this Psalm, to the effect that it has
been sung at Cambridge on Commencement day "from _time
immemorial_." The late Rev. Dr. John Pierce, a graduate of the
class of 1793, referring to the same subject, remarks: "The
Seventy-eighth Psalm, it is supposed, has, _from the foundation of
the College_, been sung in the common version of the day." In a
poem, entitled Education, delivered at Cambridge before the Phi
Beta Kappa Society, by Mr. William Biglow, July 18th, 1799,
speaking of the conduct and manners of the students, the author
says:--
"Like pigs they eat, they drink an ocean dry,
They steal like France, like Jacobins they lie,
They raise the very Devil, when called to prayers,
'To sons transmit the same, and they again to theirs'";
and, in explanation of the last line, adds this note: "Alluding to
the Psalm which is _always_ sung in Harvard Hall on Commencement
day." In his account of some of the exercises attendant upon the
Commencement at Harvard College in 1848, Professor Sidney Willard
observes: "At the Commencement dinner the sitting is not of long
duration; and we retired from table soon after the singing of the
Psalm, which, with some variation in the version, has been sung on
the same occasion from time immemorial."--_Memoirs of Youth and
Manhood_, Vol. II. p. 65.
But that we cannot take these accounts as correct in their full
extent, appears from an entry in the MS. Diary of Chief Justice
Sewall relating to a Commencement in 1685, which he closes with
these words: "After Dinner ye 3d part of ye 103d Ps. was sung in
ye Hall."
In the year 1793, at the dinner on Commencement Day, the Rev.
Joseph Willard, then President of the College, requested Mr.
afterwards Dr. John Pierce, to set the tune to the Psalm; with
which request having complied to the satisfaction of all present,
he from that period until the time of his death, in 1849,
performed this service, being absent only on one occasion. Those
who have attended Commencement dinners during the latter part of
this period cannot but associate with this hallowed Psalm the
venerable appearance and the benevolent countenance of this
excellent man.
In presenting a list of the different versions in which this Psalm
has been sung, it must not be supposed that entire correctness has
been reached; the very scanty accounts which remain render this
almost impossible, but from these, which on a question of greater
importance might be considered hardly sufficient, it would appear
that the following are the versions in which the sons of Harvard
have been accustomed to sing the Psalm of the son of Jesse.
1.--_The New England Version_.
"In 1639 there was an agreement amo. ye Magistrates and Ministers
to set aside ye Psalms then printed at ye end of their Bibles, and
sing one more congenial to their ideas of religion." Rev. Mr.
Richard Mather of Dorchester, and Rev. Mr. Thomas Weld and Rev.
Mr. John Eliot of Roxbury, were selected to make a metrical
translation, to whom the Rev. Thomas Shepard of Cambridge gives
the following metrical caution:--
"Ye Roxbury poets, keep clear of ye crime
Of missing to give us very good rhyme,
And you of Dorchester, your verses lengthen,
But with the texts own words you will y'm strengthen."
The version of this ministerial trio was printed in the year 1640,
at Cambridge, and has the honor of being the first production of
the North American press that rises to the dignity of _a book_. It
was entitled, "The Psalms newly turned into Metre." A second
edition was printed in 1647. "It was more to be commended,
however," says Mr. Peirce, in his History of Harvard University,
"for its fidelity to the text, than for the elegance of its
versification, which, having been executed by persons of different
tastes and talents, was not only very uncouth, but deficient in
uniformity. President Dunster, who was an excellent Oriental
scholar, and possessed the other requisite qualifications for the
task, was employed to revise and polish it; and in two or three
years, with the assistance of Mr. Richard Lyon, a young gentleman
who was sent from England by Sir Henry Mildmay to attend his son,
then a student in Harvard College, he produced a work, which,
under the appellation of the 'Bay Psalm-Book,' was, for a long
time, the received version in the New England congregations, was
also used in many societies in England and Scotland, and passed
through a great number of editions, both at home and abroad."--p.
14.