READERSHIP.  In the University of Oxford, the office of a reader or lecturer on scientific subjects.—­Lyell.

READING.  In the academic sense, studying.

One would hardly suspect them to be students at all, did not the number of glasses hint that those who carried them had impaired their sight by late reading.—­Bristed’s Five Years in an Eng.  Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 5.

READING MAN.  In the English universities, a reading man is a hard student, or one who is entirely devoted to his collegiate studies.—­Webster.

The distinction between “reading men” and “non-reading men” began to manifest itself.—­Alma Mater, Vol.  I. p. 169.

We might wonder, perhaps, if in England the “[Greek:  oi polloi]” should be “reading men,” but with us we should wonder were they not.—­Williams Quarterly, Vol.  II. p. 15.

READING PARTY.  In England, a number of students who in vacation time, and at a distance from the university, pursue their studies together under the direction of a coach, or private tutor.

Of this method of studying, Bristed remarks:  “It is not impossible to read on a reading-party; there is only a great chance against your being able to do so.  As a very general rule, a man works best in his accustomed place of business, where he has not only his ordinary appliances and helps, but his familiar associations about him.  The time lost in settling down and making one’s self comfortable and ready for work in a new place is not inconsiderable, and is all clear loss.  Moreover, the very idea of a reading-party involves a combination of two things incompatible, —­amusement and relaxation beyond the proper and necessary quantity of daily exercise, and hard work at books.

“Reading-parties do not confine themselves to England or the island of Great Britain.  Sometimes they have been known to go as far as Dresden.  Sometimes a party is of considerable size; when a crack Tutor goes on one, which is not often, he takes his whole team with him, and not unfrequently a Classical and Mathematical Bachelor join their pupils.”—­Five Years in an Eng.  Univ., Ed. 2d, pp. 199-201.

READ UP.  Students often speak of reading up, i.e. preparing themselves to write on a subject, by reading the works of authors who have treated of it.

REBELLION TREE.  At Harvard College, a large elm-tree, which stands to the east of the south entry of Hollis Hall, has long been known by this name.  It is supposed to have been planted at the request of Dr. Thaddeus M. Harris.  His son, Dr. Thaddeus W. Harris, the present Librarian of the College, says that his father has often told him, that when he held the office of Librarian, in the year 1792, a number of trees were set out in the College yard, and that one was planted opposite his room, No. 7 Hollis Hall, under which he buried a pewter plate, taken from the commons