In the English universities there are two classes of Bedels, called the Esquire and the Yeoman Bedel.

Of this officer as connected with Yale College, President Woolsey speaks as follows:—­“The beadle or his substitute, the vice-beadle (for the sheriff of the county came to be invested with the office), was the master of processions, and a sort of gentleman-usher to execute the commands of the President.  He was a younger graduate settled at or near the College.  There is on record a diploma of President Clap’s, investing with this office a graduate of three years’ standing, and conceding to him ’omnia jura privilegia et auctoritates ad Bedelli officium, secundum collegiorum aut universitatum leges et consuetudines usitatas; spectantia.’  The office, as is well known, still exists in the English institutions of learning, whence it was transferred first to Harvard and thence to this institution.”—­Hist.  Disc., Aug., 1850, p. 43.

In an account of a Commencement at Williams College, Sept. 8, 1795, the order in which the procession was formed was as follows:  “First, the scholars of the academy; second, students of college; third, the sheriff of the county acting as Bedellus,” &c.—­Federal Orrery, Sept. 28, 1795.

The Beadle, by order, made the following declaration.—­Clap’s Hist.  Yale Coll., 1766, p. 56.

It shall be the duty of the Faculty to appoint a College Beadle, who shall direct the procession on Commencement day, and preserve order during the exhibitions.—­Laws Yale Coll., 1837, p. 43.

BED-MAKER.  One whose occupation is to make beds, and, as in colleges and universities, to take care of the students’ rooms.  Used both in the United States and England.

T’ other day I caught my bed-maker, a grave old matron, poring very seriously over a folio that lay open upon my table.  I asked her what she was reading?  “Lord bless you, master,” says she, “who I reading?  I never could read in my life, blessed be God; and yet I loves to look into a book too.”—­The Student, Vol.  I. p. 55, 1750.

I asked a bed-maker where Mr. ——­’s chambers were.—­Gent.  Mag., 1795, p. 118.

  While the grim bed-maker provokes the dust,
  And soot-born atoms, which his tomes encrust.
    The College.—­A sketch in verse, in Blackwood’s Mag., May,
    1849.

The bed-makers are the women who take care of the rooms:  there is about one to each staircase, that is to say, to every eight rooms.  For obvious reasons they are selected from such of the fair sex as have long passed the age at which they might have had any personal attractions.  The first intimation which your bed-maker gives you is that she is bound to report you to the tutor if ever you stay out of your rooms all night.—­Bristed’s Five Years in an Eng.  Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 15.