DUDLEIAN LECTURE.  An anniversary sermon which is preached at Harvard College before the students; supported by the yearly interest of one hundred pounds sterling, the gift of Paul Dudley, from whom the lecture derives its name.  The following topics were chosen by him as subjects for this lecture.  First, for “the proving, explaining, and proper use and improvement of the principles of Natural Religion.”  Second, “for the confirmation, illustration, and improvement of the great articles of the Christian Religion.”  Third, “for the detecting, convicting, and exposing the idolatry, errors, and superstitions of the Romish Church.”  Fourth, “for maintaining, explaining, and proving the validity of the ordination of ministers or pastors of the churches, and so their administration of the sacraments or ordinances of religion, as the same hath been practised in New England from the first beginning of it, and so continued to this day.”

“The instrument proceeds to declare,” says Quincy, “that he does not intend to invalidate Episcopal ordination, or that practised in Scotland, at Geneva, and among the Dissenters in England and in this country, all which ’I esteem very safe, Scriptural, and valid.’  He directed these subjects to be discussed in rotation, one every year, and appointed the President of the College, the Professor of Divinity, the pastor of the First Church in Cambridge, the Senior Tutor of the College, and the pastor of the First Church in Roxbury, trustees of these lectures, which commenced in 1755, and have since been annually continued without intermission.”—­Quincy’s Hist.  Harv.  Univ., Vol.  II. pp. 139, 140.

DULCE DECUS.  Latin; literally, sweet honor.  At Williams College a name given by a certain class of students to the game of whist; the reason for which is evident.  Whether Maecenas would have considered it an honor to have had the compliment of Horace, “O et praesidium et dulce decus meum,” transferred as a title for a game at cards, we leave for others to decide.

DUMMER JUNGE,—­literally, stupid youth,—­among German students “is the highest and most cutting insult, since it implies a denial of sound, manly understanding and strength of capacity to him to whom it is applied.”—­Howitt’s Student Life of Germany, Am. ed., p. 127.

DUN.  An importunate creditor who urges for payment.  A character not wholly unknown to collegians.

  Thanks heaven, flings by his cap and gown, and shuns
  A place made odious by remorseless duns.
    The College, in Blackwood’s Mag., May, 1849.

E.

EGRESSES.  At the older American colleges, when charges were made and excuses rendered in Latin, the student who had left before the conclusion of any of the religious services was accused of the misdemeanor by the proper officer, who made use of the word egresses, a kind of barbarous second person singular of some imaginary verb, signifying, it is supposed, “you went out.”