In England, a student, although precluded from returning to the university whence he has been dismissed, is not hindered from taking a degree at some other university.

DISPENSATION.  In universities and colleges, the granting of a license, or the license itself, to do what is forbidden by law, or to omit something which is commanded.  Also, an exemption from attending a college exercise.

The business of the first of these houses, or the oligarchal portion of the constitution [the House of Congregation], is chiefly to grant degrees, and pass graces and dispensations.—­Oxford Guide, Ed. 1847, p. xi.

All the students who are under twenty-one years of age may be excused from attending the private Hebrew lectures of the Professor, upon their producing to the President a certificate from their parents or guardians, desiring a dispensation.—­Laws Harv.  Coll., 1798, p. 12.

DISPERSE.  A favorite word with tutors and proctors; used when speaking to a number of students unlawfully collected.  This technical use of the word is burlesqued in the following passages.

Minerva conveys the Freshman to his room, where his cries make such a disturbance, that a proctor enters and commands the blue-eyed goddess “to disperse.”  This order she reluctantly obeys.—­Harvardiana, Vol.  IV. p. 23.

  And often grouping on the chains, he hums his own sweet verse,
  Till Tutor ——­, coming up, commands him to disperse.
    Poem before Y.H.  Harv.  Coll., 1849.

DISPUTATION.  An exercise in colleges, in which parties reason in opposition to each other, on some question proposed.—­Webster.

Disputations were formerly, in American colleges, a part of the exercises on Commencement and Exhibition days.

DISPUTE.  To contend in argument; to reason or argue in opposition. —­Webster.

The two Senior classes shall dispute once or twice a week before the President, a Professor, or the Tutor.—­Laws Yale Coll., 1837, p. 15.

DIVINITY.  A member of a theological school is often familiarly called a Divinity, abbreviated for a Divinity student.

      One of the young Divinities passed
  Straight through the College yard.
    Childe Harvard, p. 40.

DIVISION.  At the University of Cambridge, Eng., each of the three terms is divided into two parts. Division is the time when this partition is made.

After “division” in the Michaelmas and Lent terms, a student, who can assign a good plea for absence to the college authorities, may go down and take holiday for the rest of the time.—­Bristed’s Five Years in an Eng.  Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 63.

DOCTOR.  One who has passed all the degrees of a faculty, and is empowered to practise and teach it; as, a doctor in divinity, in physic, in law; or, according to modern usage, a person who has received the highest degree in a faculty.  The degree of doctor is conferred by universities and colleges, as an honorary mark of literary distinction.  It is also conferred on physicians as a professional degree.—­Webster.