Similar in thought to this account are the remarks of Professor Sidney Willard concerning Harvard College in 1794, in his late work, entitled, “Memories of Youth and Manhood.”  “The students who boarded in commons were obliged to go to the kitchen-door with their bowls or pitchers for their suppers, when they received their modicum of milk or chocolate in their vessel, held in one hand, and their piece of bread in the other, and repaired to their rooms to take their solitary repast.  There were suspicions at times that the milk was diluted by a mixture of a very common tasteless fluid, which led a sagacious Yankee student to put the matter to the test by asking the simple carrier-boy why his mother did not mix the milk with warm water instead of cold.  ‘She does,’ replied the honest youth.  This mode of obtaining evening commons did not prove in all cases the most economical on the part of the fed.  It sometimes happened, that, from inadvertence or previous preparation for a visit elsewhere, some individuals had arrayed themselves in their dress-coats and breeches, and in their haste to be served, and by jostling in the crowd, got sadly sprinkled with milk or chocolate, either by accident or by the stealthy indulgence of the mischievous propensities of those with whom they came in contact; and oftentimes it was a scene of confusion that was not the most pleasant to look upon or be engaged in.  At breakfast the students were furnished, in Commons Hall, with tea, coffee, or milk, and a small loaf of bread.  The age of a beaker of beer with a certain allowance of bread had expired.”—­Vol.  I. pp. 313, 314.

No scholar shall be absent above an hour at morning bever, half an hour at evening bever, &c.—­Quincy’s Hist.  Harv.  Univ., Vol.  I. p. 517.

The butler is not bound to stay above half an hour at bevers in the buttery after the tolling of the bell.—­Ibid., Vol.  I. p. 584.

BEVER.  To take a small repast between meals.—­Wallis.

BIBLE CLERK.  In the University of Oxford, the Bible clerks are required to attend the service of the chapel, and to deliver in a list of the absent undergraduates to the officer appointed to enforce the discipline of the institution.  Their duties are different in different colleges.—­Oxford Guide.

A Bible clerk has seldom too many friends in the
University.—­Blackwood’s Mag., Vol.  LX., Eng. ed., p. 312.

In the University of Cambridge, Eng., “a very ancient scholarship, so called because the student who was promoted to that office was enjoined to read the Bible at meal-times.”—­Gradus ad Cantab.

BIENNIAL EXAMINATION.  At Yale College, in addition to the public examinations of the classes at the close of each term, on the studies of the term, private examinations are also held twice in the college course, at the close of the Sophomore and Senior years, on the studies of the two preceding years.  The latter are called biennial.—­Yale Coll.  Cat.