BEER-COMMENT.  In the German universities, the student’s drinking code.

The beer-comment of Heidelberg, which gives the student’s code of drinking, is about twice the length of our University book of statutes.—­Lond.  Quar.  Rev., Am.  Ed., Vol.  LXXIII. p. 56.

BEMOSSED HEAD.  In the German universities, a student during the sixth and last term, or semester, is called a Bemossed Head, “the highest state of honor to which man can attain.”—­Howitt.

See MOSS-COVERED HEAD.

BENE.  Latin, well.  A word sometimes attached to a written college exercise, by the instructor, as a mark of approbation.

  When I look back upon my college life,
  And think that I one starveling bene got.
    Harvardiana, Vol.  III. p. 402.

BENE DISCESSIT.  Latin; literally, he has departed honorably.  This phrase is used in the English universities to signify that the student leaves his college to enter another by the express consent and approbation of the Master and Fellows.—­Gradus ad Cantab.

Mr. Pope being about to remove from Trinity to Emmanuel, by Bene-Discessit, was desirous of taking my rooms.—­Alma Mater, Vol.  I. p. 167.

BENEFICIARY.  One who receives anything as a gift, or is maintained by charity.—­Blackstone.

In American colleges, students who are supported on established foundations are called beneficiaries.  Those who receive maintenance from the American Education Society are especially designated in this manner.

No student who is a college beneficiary shall remain such any longer than he shall continue exemplary for sobriety, diligence, and orderly conduct.—­Laws of Univ. at Cam., Mass., 1848, p. 19.

BEVER.  From the Italian bevere, to drink.  An intermediate refreshment between breakfast and dinner.—­Morison.

At Harvard College, dinner was formerly the only meal which was regularly taken in the hall.  Instead of breakfast and supper, the students were allowed to receive a bowl of milk or chocolate, with a piece of bread, from the buttery hatch, at morning and evening; this they could eat in the yard, or take to their rooms and eat there.  At the appointed hour for bevers, there was a general rush for the buttery, and if the walking happened to be bad, or if it was winter, many ludicrous accidents usually occurred.  One perhaps would slip, his bowl would fly this way and his bread that, while he, prostrate, afforded an excellent stumbling-block to those immediately behind him; these, falling in their turn, spattering with the milk themselves and all near them, holding perhaps their spoons aloft, the only thing saved from the destruction, would, after disentangling themselves from the mass of legs, arms, etc., return to the buttery, and order a new bowl, to be charged with the extras at the close of the term.