“This word,” says Mr. Pickering, “was formerly much used at our colleges instead of the old English verb approve.  The students used to speak of having their performances approbated by the instructors.  It is also now in common use with our clergy as a sort of technical term, to denote a person who is licensed to preach; they would say, such a one is approbated, that is, licensed to preach.  It is also common in New England to say of a person who is licensed by the county courts to sell spirituous liquors, or to keep a public house, that he is approbated; and the term is adopted in the law of Massachusetts on this subject.”  The word is obsolete in England, is obsolescent at our colleges, and is very seldom heard in the other senses given above.

By the twelfth statute, a student incurs ... no penalty by declaiming or attempting to declaim without having his piece previously approbated.—­MS. Note to Laws of Harvard College, 1798.

Observe their faces as they enter, and you will perceive some shades there, which, if they are approbated and admitted, will be gone when they come out.—­Scenes and Characters in College, New Haven, 1847, p. 18.

How often does the professor whose duty it is to criticise and approbate the pieces for this exhibition wish they were better! —­Ibid., p. 195.

I was approbated by the Boston Association, I suspect, as a person well known, but known as an anomaly, and admitted in charity.—­Memorial of John S. Popkin, D.D., p. lxxxv.

ASSES’ BRIDGE.  The fifth proposition of the first book of Euclid is called the Asses’ Bridge, or rather “Pons Asinorum,” from the difficulty with which many get over it.

The Asses’ Bridge in Euclid is not more difficult to be got over, nor the logarithms of Napier so hard to be unravelled, as many of Hoyle’s Cases and Propositions.—­The Connoisseur, No.  LX.

After Mr. Brown had passed us over the “Asses’ Bridge,” without any serious accident, and conducted us a few steps further into the first book, he dismissed us with many compliments.—­Alma Mater, Vol.  I. p. 126.

I don’t believe he passed the Pons Asinorum without many a halt and a stumble.—­Ibid., Vol.  I. p. 146.

ASSESSOR.  In the English universities, an officer specially appointed to assist the Vice-Chancellor in his court.—­Cam.  Cal.

AUCTION.  At Harvard College, it was until within a few years customary for the members of the Senior Class, previously to leaving college, to bring together in some convenient room all the books, furniture, and movables of any kind which they wished to dispose of, and put them up at public auction.  Everything offered was either sold, or, if no bidders could be obtained, given away.

AUDIT.  In the University of Cambridge, England, a meeting of the Master and Fellows to examine or audit the college accounts.  This is succeeded by a feast, on which occasion is broached the very best ale, for which reason ale of this character is called “audit ale.”—­Grad. ad Cantab.