O.
OAK. In the English universities, the outer door of a student’s room.
No man has a right to attack the rooms of one with whom he is not in the habit of intimacy. From ignorance of this axiom I had near got a horse-whipping, and was kicked down stairs for going to a wrong oak, whose tenant was not in the habit of taking jokes of this kind.—The Etonian, Vol. II. p. 287.
A pecker, I must explain, is a heavy pointed hammer for splitting large coals; an instrument often put into requisition to force open an oak (an outer door), when the key of the spring latch happens to be left inside, and the scout has gone away.—The Collegian’s Guide, p. 119.
Every set of rooms is provided with an oak or outer door, with a spring lock, of which the master has one latch-key, and the servant another.—Ibid., p. 141.
“To sport oak, or a door,” says the Gradus ad Cantabrigiam, “is, in the modern phrase, to exclude duns, or other unpleasant intruders.” It generally signifies, however, nothing more than locking or fastening one’s door for safety or convenience.
I always “sported my oak” whenever I went out; and if ever I found any article removed from its usual place, I inquired for it; and thus showed I knew where everything was last placed.—Collegian’s Guide, p. 141.
If you persist, and say you cannot join them, you must sport your oak, and shut yourself into your room, and all intruders out.—Ibid., p. 340.
Used also in some American colleges.
And little did they dream who knocked hard and often at his oak in vain, &c.—Yale Lit. Mag., Vol. X. p. 47.
OATHS. At Yale College, those who were engaged in the government were formerly required to take the oaths of allegiance and abjuration appointed by the Parliament of England. In his Discourse before the Graduates of Yale College, President Woolsey gives the following account of this obligation:—
“The charter of 1745 imposed another test in the form of a political oath upon all governing officers in the College. They were required before they undertook the execution of their trusts, or within three months after, ‘publicly in the College hall [to] take the oaths, and subscribe the declaration, appointed by an act of Parliament made in the first year of George the First, entitled, An Act for the further security of his Majesty’s person and government, and the succession of the Crown in the heirs of the late Princess Sophia, being Protestants, and for extinguishing the hopes of the pretended Prince of Wales, and his open and secret abettors.’ We cannot find the motive for prescribing this oath of allegiance and abjuration in the Protestant zeal which was enkindled by the second Pretender’s movements in England,—for, although belonging to this same year 1745, these movements were subsequent to the charter,—but rather in the desire of removing suspicion of disloyalty, and conforming the practice in the College to that required by the law in the English universities. This oath was taken until it became an unlawful one, when the State assumed complete sovereignty at the Revolution. For some years afterwards, the officers took the oath of fidelity to the State of Connecticut, and I believe that the last instance of this occurred at the very end of the eighteenth century.”—p. 40.
In the Diary of President Stiles, under the date of July 8, 1778, is the annexed entry, in which is given the formula of the oath required by the State:—
“The oath of fidelity administered to me by the Hon. Col. Hamlin, one of the Council of the State of Connecticut, at my inauguration.
“‘You, Ezra Stiles, do swear by the name of the ever-living God, that you will be true and faithful to the State of Connecticut, as a free and independent State, and in all things do your duty as a good and faithful subject of the said State, in supporting the rights, liberties, and privileges of the same. So help you God.’
“This oath, substituted instead of that of allegiance to the King by the Assembly of Connecticut, May, 1777, to be taken by all in this State; and so it comes into use in Yale College.”—Woolsey’s Hist. Discourse, Appendix, p. 117.
[Greek: Hoi Aristoi.] Greek; literally, the bravest. At Princeton College, the aristocrats, or would-be aristocrats, are so called.
[Greek: Hoi Polloi.] Greek; literally, the many.
See POLLOI.
OLD BURSCH. A name given in the German universities to a student during his fourth term. Students of this term are also designated Old Ones.
As they came forward, they were obliged to pass under a pair of naked swords, held crosswise by two Old Ones.—Longfellow’s Hyperion, p. 110.
OLD HOUSE. A name given in the German universities to a student during his fifth term.
OPPONENCY. The opening of an academical disputation; the proposition of objections to a tenet; an exercise for a degree.—Todd.
Mr. Webster remarks, “I believe not used in America.”
In the old times, the university discharged this duty [teaching] by means of the public readings or lectures,… and by the keeping of acts and opponencies—being certain vivâ voce disputations —by the students.—The English Universities and their Reforms, in Blackwood’s Magazine, Feb. 1849.
OPPONENT. In universities and colleges, where disputations are carried on, the opponent is, in technical application, the person who begins the dispute by raising objections to some tenet or doctrine.
OPTIME. The title of those who stand in the second and third ranks of honors, immediately after the Wranglers, in the University of Cambridge, Eng. They are called respectively Senior and Junior Optimes.
See JUNIOR OPTIME, POLLOI, and SENIOR OPTIME.
OPTIONAL. At some American colleges, the student is obliged to pursue during a part of the course such studies as are prescribed. During another portion of the course, he is allowed to select from certain branches those which he desires to follow. The latter are called optional studies. In familiar conversation and writing, the word optional is used alone.
For optional will come our way,
And lectures furnish time to play,
’Neath elm-tree shade to smoke all day.
Songs, Biennial Jubilee, Yale Coll., 1855.
ORIGINAL COMPOSITION. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., an essay or theme written by a student in Latin, Greek, or Hebrew, is termed original composition.
Composition there is of course, but more Latin than Greek, and some original Composition.—Bristed’s Five Years in an Eng. Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 137.
Original Composition—that is, Composition in the true sense of the word—in the dead languages is not much practised.—Ibid., p. 185.
OVERSEER. The general government of the colleges in the United States is vested in some instances in a Corporation, in others in a Board of Trustees or Overseers, or, as in the case of Harvard College, in the two combined. The duties of the Overseers are, generally, to pass such orders and statutes as seem to them necessary for the prosperity of the college whose affairs they oversee, to dispose of its funds in such a manner as will be most advantageous, to appoint committees to visit it and examine the students connected with it, to ratify the appointment of instructors, and to hear such reports of the proceedings of the college government as require their concurrence.
OXFORD. The cap worn by the members of the University of Oxford, England, is called an Oxford or Oxford cap. The same is worn at some American colleges on Exhibition and Commencement Days. In shape, it is square and flat, covered with black cloth; from the centre depends a tassel of black cord. It is further described in the following passage.
My back equipped, it was not fair
My head should ‘scape, and so, as square
As chessboard,
A cap I bought, my skull to screen,
Of cloth without, and all within
Of pasteboard.
Terræ-Filius, Vol. II. p. 225.
Thunders of clapping!—As he bows, on high
“Præses” his “Oxford” doffs, and bows reply.
Childe Harvard, p. 36.
It is sometimes called a trencher cap, from its shape.
See CAP.
OXFORD-MIXED. Cloth such as is worn at the University of Oxford, England. The students in Harvard College were formerly required to wear this kind of cloth as their uniform. The color is given in the following passage: “By black-mixed (called also Oxford-mixed) is understood, black with a mixture of not more than one twentieth, nor less than one twenty-fifth, part of white.”—Laws of Harv. Coll., 1826, p. 25.
He generally dresses in Oxford-mixed pantaloons, and a brown surtout.—Collegian, p. 240.
It has disappeared along with Commons, the servility of Freshmen and brutality of Sophomores, the Oxford-mixed uniform and buttons of the same color.—Harv. Mag., Vol. I. p. 263.
OXONIAN. A student or graduate of the University of Oxford, England.