Oh! Does the Freshman Smoke?

In looking over some old books in the College Library, a few days since, I happened upon some curious accounts of student life, at the German Universities, two or three hundred years ago. These books are accessible to anybody; but as few, probably, may happen to hit upon them, I have thought that a brief account of student life hundreds of years since, might be interesting to us to-day. Our Colleges, based upon the English system, and closely imitating it, have preserved many features from the European Universities; and many old customs, which ordinary people look upon as barbarisms, but which experience shows us will, nevertheless, inhere to a College, despite all efforts to eradicate them, we find grow up naturally in all Schools, in all ages. So that when we find these objectionable usages cropping out in all Colleges in the past, the inquiry presents itself, whether they are not parts of the legitimate development of a University.

The idea of domineering over new comers, seems to have flourished at all Universities. Augustine alludes to the students at the Universities of Carthage, who annoyed those lately come among them. This was fourteen hundred years ago. It must have been disagreeable to be hazed by African Sophomores. Probably the white trash from across the Mediterranean were not very kindly received. May be the

question of their admission was discussed in the debating hall of the Carthaginian Fratres in Unitate. The event showed them more liberal, at all events, than we probably would be.

But the Germans carried the subjection of the Freshmen to its most elaborate and systematic development. About the beginning of the Seventeenth Century, the institution of Pennalism began. Pennalism seems to have been what we understand by fagging in the English Schools, but carried much farther. It was maintained by an organized system of Secret Societies, having branches in all the German Universities, which instituted a sort of student court, in which were settled all differences among themselves. Any Freshman or Pennal who refused to join the "Landsmannshaft," was ill-treated on all hands by common understanding; very much as the secret society Freshmen here used to make war upon the much enduring Gamma Nu; while, if he joined, he was held a Pennal for one year, six weeks, six days, six hours, and six minutes, with the hope then of becoming an Absolutus, and making new Pennals bring his beer and scour his rapiers in turn. The result was, that almost everybody accepted the lesser evil, and tyrannized over the succeeding Pennals, like veritable Sophomores, just fledged.

The titles of the Freshmen at the old Universities, are in themselves quite a study. They were called Pennals, because the good youths, on their first advent upon the student life, wore huge bunches of pens in their hats, with which to take down every precious word in the lecture. Who of us does not remember the blank books, whose first few pages we sacredly filled with Prof. Hadley's Notes on the Odyssey? Schöttgen gives a long list of titles, with which the young students were blessed. "Beani" was one term, and "Crow bills." another. Their meaning is similar. Beani, from the French, bec jaune yellow bill. Both terms intimate that the Freshmen are still yellow about the bill, like young crows or any young birds. The terms neovisti, imperfecti, and innocentes, plainly refer to their verdant condition. The historian piously adds, that, "by an abuse of Theological terms, it was also said that they were in statu innocentia. The term Quasimodogeniti also troubled the good old man, which he styles "an excellent expression, used by the Holy Ghost himself, which men have shamefully abused." Housecocks, Heifer-calves, Tape-worms, Sucklings, and Foxes, the ordinary title yet, are some of the remaining

terms.

Schröder alludes to the mode in which the new comers were' met. "When young people," says he, "come to the University, they have

scarcely set one foot inside the city, before one of the Schorists waits upon them to inquire, Will you come to the Magnificus, and promise to obey him in all proper things? What Magnificus?' they ask. Ah! you then have no friend near him, and his opinion of you will be small. We will advise you how to arrange matters so that you will thank us all your lives.'

Here is an old Dutch Divine's description of life in the days of Pen

nalism:

Meanwhile, I saw a great chamber, a common lodging-room, or museum, or study, or beer shop, or wine shop, or ball room. In truth, I cannot really say what it was, for I saw in it all these things. It was swarming full of students. The most eminent of them sat at a table, and drank to each other, till their eyes turned in their heads like those of a stuck calf. One drank to another out of a dish, another from a shoe; one eat glass, another dirt; a third drank from a dish in which were all sorts of food, enough to make one sick to see. They promised to be friends and brothers forever; and so each would tie a string off his leathern breeches to the many-colored doublet of the other. But those with whom another refused to drink, acted like a madman or a devil; sprang up as high as they could, for anger; tore out their hair, in their eagerness to avenge such an insult, threw glasses in each other's faces, out with their swords and at each other's heads, until here and there one fell down and lay there; and such quarrels I saw happen, even between the best friends and blood relatives, with devilish rage and anger. There were others also who were obliged to serve as waiters, and pour out drink, and to receive knocks on the head, and pulls of the hair, and similar attentions, which the others bestowed on them, as if on so many horses or asses; sometimes bringing to them a dishful of wine, and singing the Bacchus song, O vitrum gloriosum !—which waiters were termed by the others Bacchants, Pennals, House-cocks, Mother-calves, Sucklings, Quasimodogeniti; and they sung a long song about them, beginning:

'Proudly all the Pennals hither are gathered,

Who are lately newly feathered,

And who at home have long been tethered,
Nursing their mothers'.

At the conclusion of these ceremonies, they cut off their hair, as they do that of a professing nun."

Even shearing the Freshmen, it seems, is an old amusement.

The ceremony of Deposition also is of interest. It was the initiation of the students to the University, and all the members, both students and Professors, took part. It finally became a mere piece of student buffoonery; but at first it was an officially authorized ceremony. The University of Erfurt has a statute, saying:-"No one shall be enrolled as a student, who shall not previously have undergone the rite of Deposition, anciently established." In this University, the chief Beadle conducted the Deposition in the Faculty room. The Greifswalle statutes of 1845 say :-"The Deposition is to be

kept up. Such Beani as feel themselves free from school discipline, are inclined to idleness, and think themselves exceedingly learned, are to be somewhat admonished during the Deposition, how trifling their learning is, and how much they have yet to learn." Imagine Freshmen initiation in the Faculty room, and the Swells shook up the harder for being too dandified! There is an acrostic definition of Beanus. Beanus est animal nesciens vitam studiosorum. Martin Luther" absolved" at several Depositions, and Melancthon is said to have done so also. Here is an account of a Deposition which happened in 1716.

"The principal of the ceremony, called Herr Depositor, caused the youths who desired to be received into the Class of students, to dress in clothes of various patterns and colors. Their faces were blacked, and long ears and horns were fastened to their hats, whose brims were fastened down smooth; in each corner of their mouth was inserted a long boar's tusk, which they must hold fast, like the little tobacco pipes, during the subsequent beating; and on their shoulders were placed long black mantles. Thus hideously and ridiculously clothed, like those whom the inquisition has condemned to the flames, the Depositor dismisses them from the Deposition-chamber, and drives them before him with a stick, like a herd of oxen or asses, to a hall where the spectators await. Here he arranges them in a circle, in the middle of which he stands, makes faces at them, and silent reverences, ridicules them for their absurd appearance, and then delivers a discourse, proceeding from burlesque to earnest. He speaks of the vices and follies of youth, and shows how necessary it is for them to be improved, disciplined, and polished by study. Then he asks them various questions, which they must answer. But as the swine's tusks which they hold in their mouths hinder them from speaking distinctly, they make a noise more like swine's grunting; whereupon the Depositor calls them swine, and beats them with a stick over the shoulders. These teeth, he says, signify excesses; for young people's understandings are obscured by excess in eating and drinking. He then produces, out of a bag, a sort of wooden tongs, with which he takes them about the neck, and shakes them till the tusks fall out upon the ground. If they are docile and industrious, he says, they will get rid of their tendencies to intemperance aud gluttony, as of these swine's tusks. Then he pulls off their long ears, by which he gives them to understand that they must study diligently, unless they wish to remain like asses. Then he removes their horns, which signify brutal rudeness. He then produces from his bag a plane. Each Beanus must now lie down, first on his stomach, then on his back, and then on each side, while the Depositor planes him his whole length in each position, saying, 'Literature and liberal arts will, in like manner, polish your mind.' He is then hewn with a monster axe, the Depositor remarking, as Eruditus means nothing else than an image hewn out of a rough block, thus should a student be erudite from such coarse rough manners. His stomach is then seemingly pierced with an enormous auger, while the Beanus learns that by pains and industry men in like manner pierce into, investigate, and discover the secrets of nature.' His ears are then cleaned with a huge ear-pick, and he is admonished to keep his ears open, to receive the truth. At last, they are brought to the Dean of the Philosophical Faculty, who consecrates them, putting salt in their mouths, and pouring wine on their heads. The salt is the symbol of