that, at some former period, it had been the scene of a murder.  A brutal husband had dragged his wife by the hair up and down the stairs, and then killed her.  On the anniversary of the murder,—­and what day that was no one knew,—­there were sights and sounds,—­flitting garments daggled in blood, plaintive screams,—­stridor ferri tractaeque catenae,—­enough to appall the stoutest Sophomore.  But for myself, I can truly say, that I got through my Freshman year without having seen the ghost of Mr. Wiswal or his lamented lady.  I was not, however, sorry when the twelvemonth was up, and I was transferred to that light, airy, well-ventilated room, No. 20 Hollis; being the inner room, ground floor, north entry of that ancient and respectable edifice.”—­To-Day, Boston, Saturday, July 31, 1852, p. 66.

Many years ago there emigrated to this University, from the wilds of New Hampshire, an odd genius, by the name of Jedediah Croak, who took up his abode as a student in the old Den.—­Harvard Register, 1827-28, A Legend of the Den, pp. 82-86.

DEPOSITION.  During the first half of the seventeenth century, in the majority of the German universities, Catholic as well as Protestant, the matriculation of a student was preceded by a ceremony called the deposition.  See Howitt’s Student Life in Germany, Am. ed., pp. 119-121.

DESCENDAS.  Latin; literally, you may descend.  At the University of Cambridge, Eng., when a student who has been appointed to declaim in chapel fails in eloquence, memory, or taste, his harangue is usually cut short “by a testy descendas.”—­Grad. ad Cantab.

DETERMINING.  In the University of Oxford, a Bachelor is entitled to his degree of M.A. twelve terms after the regular time for taking his first degree, having previously gone through the ceremony of determining, which exercise consists in reading two dissertations in Latin prose, or one in prose and a copy of Latin verses.  As this takes place in Lent, it is commonly called determining in Lent.—­Oxf.  Guide.

DETUR.  Latin; literally, let it be given.

In 1657, the Hon. Edward Hopkins, dying, left, among other donations to Harvard College, one “to be applied to the purchase of books for presents to meritorious undergraduates.”  The distribution of these books is made, at the commencement of each academic year, to students of the Sophomore Class who have made meritorious progress in their studies during their Freshman year; also, as far as the state of the funds admits, to those members of the Junior Class who entered as Sophomores, and have made meritorious progress in their studies during the Sophomore year, and to such Juniors as, having failed to receive a detur at the commencement of the Sophomore year, have, during that year, made decided improvement in scholarship.—­Laws of Univ. at Cam., Mass., 1848, p. 18.