“From the first word in the short Latin label,” Peirce says, “which is signed by the President, and attached to the inside of the cover, a book presented from this fund is familiarly called a Detur.”—­Hist.  Harv.  Univ., p. 103.

  Now for my books; first Bunyan’s Pilgrim,
  (As he with thankful pleasure will grin,)
  Tho’ dogleaved, torn, in bad type set in,
  ’T will do quite well for classmate B——­,
  And thus with complaisance to treat her,
  ’T will answer for another Detur.
    The Will of Charles Prentiss.

Be not, then, painfully anxious about the Greek particles, and sit not up all night lest you should miss prayers, only that you may have a “Detur,” and be chosen into the Phi Beta Kappa among the first eight.  Get a “Detur” by all means, and the square medal with its cabalistic signs, the sooner the better; but do not “stoop and lie in wait” for them.—­A Letter to a Young Man who has just entered College, 1849, p. 36.

  Or yet,—­though ’t were incredible,
        —­say hast obtained a detur!
    Poem before Iadma, 1850.

DIG.  To study hard; to spend much time in studying.

  Another, in his study chair,
  Digs up Greek roots with learned care,—­
    Unpalatable eating.—­Harv.  Reg., 1827-28, p. 247.

Here the sunken eye and sallow countenance bespoke the man who dug sixteen hours “per diem.”—­Ibid., p. 303.

Some have gone to lounge away an hour in the libraries,—­some to ditto in the grove,—­some to dig upon the afternoon lesson.—­Amherst Indicator, Vol.  I. p. 77.

DIG.  A diligent student; one who learns his lessons by hard and long-continued exertion.

  A clever soul is one, I say,
  Who wears a laughing face all day,
  Who never misses declamation,
  Nor cuts a stupid recitation,
  And yet is no elaborate dig,
  Nor for rank systems cares a fig.
    Harvardiana, Vol.  III. p. 283.

I could see, in the long vista of the past, the many honest digs who had in this room consumed the midnight oil.—­Collegian, p. 231.

And, truly, the picture of a college “dig” taking a walk—­no, I say not so, for he never “takes a walk,” but “walking for exercise”—­justifies the contemptuous estimate.—­A Letter to a Young Man who has just entered College, 1849, p. 14.

He is just the character to enjoy the treadmill, which perhaps might be a useful appendage to a college, not as a punishment, but as a recreation for “digs.”—­Ibid., p. 14.

  Resolves that he will be, in spite of toil or of fatigue,
  That humbug of all humbugs, the staid, inveterate “dig.”
    Poem before Iadma of Harv.  Coll., 1850.

          There goes the dig, just look! 
  How like a parson he eyes his book!
    The Jobsiad, in Lit.  World, Oct. 11, 1851.