FAG.  Time spent in, or period of, studying.

The afternoon’s fag is a pretty considerable one, lasting from three till dark.—­Alma Mater, Vol.  I. p. 248.

After another hard fag of a week or two, a land excursion would be proposed.—­Ibid., Vol.  II. p. 56.

FAGGING.  Laborious drudgery; the acting as a drudge for another at a college or school.

2.  Studying hard, equivalent to digging, grubbing, &c.

  Thrice happy ye, through toil and dangers past,
    Who rest upon that peaceful shore,
    Where all your fagging is no more,
  And gain the long-expected port at last.
    Gent.  Mag., 1795, p. 19.

To fagging I set to, therefore, with as keen a relish as ever alderman sat down to turtle.—­Alma Mater, Vol.  I. p. 123.

See what I pay for liberty to leave school early, and to figure in every ball-room in the country, and see the world, instead of fagging at college.—­Collegian’s Guide, p. 307.

FAIR HARVARD.  At the celebration of the era of the second century from the origin of Harvard College, which was held at Cambridge, September 8th, 1836, the following Ode, written by the Rev. Samuel Gilman, D.D., of Charleston, S.C., was sung to the air, “Believe me, if all those endearing young charms.”

 “FAIR HARVARD! thy sons to thy Jubilee throng,
    And with blessings surrender thee o’er,
  By these festival-rites, from the Age that is past,
    To the Age that is waiting before. 
  O Relic and Type of our ancestors’ worth,
    That hast long kept their memory warm! 
  First flower of their wilderness!  Star of their night,
    Calm rising through change and through storm!

 “To thy bowers we were led in the bloom of our youth,
    From the home of our free-roving years,
  When our fathers had warned, and our mothers had prayed,
    And our sisters had blest, through their tears.
  Thou then wert our parent,—­the nurse of our souls,—­
    We were moulded to manhood by thee,
  Till, freighted with treasure-thoughts, friendships, and hopes,
    Thou didst launch us on Destiny’s sea.

 “When, as pilgrims, we come to revisit thy halls,
    To what kindlings the season gives birth! 
  Thy shades are more soothing, thy sunlight more dear,
    Than descend on less privileged earth: 
  For the Good and the Great, in their beautiful prime,
    Through thy precincts have musingly trod,
  As they girded their spirits, or deepened the streams
    That make glad the fair City of God.

 “Farewell! be thy destinies onward and bright! 
    To thy children the lesson still give,
  With freedom to think, and with patience to bear,
    And for right ever bravely to live. 
  Let not moss-covered Error moor thee at its side,
    As the world on Truth’s current glides by;
  Be the herald of Light, and the bearer of Love,
    Till the stock of the Puritans die.”