I am again your petitioner in behalf of that great chum of literature, Samuel Johnson.—­Smollett, in Boswell.

In this last instance, the word chum is used either with the more extended meaning of companion, friend, or, as the sovereign prince of Tartary is called the Cham or Khan, so Johnson is called the chum (cham) or prince of literature.

CHUM.  To occupy a chamber with another.

CHUMMING.  Occupying a room with another.

Such is one of the evils of chumming.—­Harvardiana, Vol.  I. p. 324.

CHUMSHIP.  The state of occupying a room in company with another; chumming.

In the seventeenth century, in Milton’s time, for example, (about 1624,) and for more than sixty years after that era, the practice of chumship prevailed.—­De Quincey’s Life and Manners, p. 251.

CIVILIAN.  A student of the civil law at the university.—­Graves.  Webster.

CLARIAN.  In the University of Cambridge, Eng., a member of Clare Hall.

CLASS.  A number of students in a college or school, of the same standing, or pursuing the same studies.  In colleges, the students entering or becoming members the same year, and pursuing the same studies.—­Webster.

In the University of Oxford, class is the division of the candidates who are examined for their degrees according to their rate of merit.  Those who are entitled to this distinction are denominated Classmen, answering to the optimes and wranglers in the University of Cambridge.—­Crabb’s Tech.  Dict.

See an interesting account of “reading for a first class,” in the Collegian’s Guide, Chap.  XII.

CLASS.  To place in ranks or divisions students that are pursuing the same studies; to form into a class or classes.—­Webster.

CLASS BOOK.  Within the last thirty or forty years, a custom has arisen at Harvard College of no small importance in an historical point of view, but which is principally deserving of notice from the many pleasing associations to which its observance cannot fail to give rise.  Every graduating class procures a beautiful and substantial folio of many hundred pages, called the Class Book, and lettered with the year of the graduation of the class.  In this a certain number of pages is allotted to each individual of the class, in which he inscribes a brief autobiography, paying particular attention to names and dates.  The book is then deposited in the hands of the Class Secretary, whose duty it is to keep a faithful record of the marriage, birth of children, and death of each of his classmates, together with their various places of residence, and the offices and honors to which each may have attained.  This information is communicated to him by letter by his classmates, and he is in consequence prepared to answer any inquiries relative to any member of the class.  At his death, the book passes into the hands of one of the Class Committee, and at their death, into those of some surviving member of the class; and when the class has at length become extinct, it is deposited on the shelves of the College Library.