CONGREGATION.  At Oxford, the house of congregation is one of the two assemblies in which the business of the University, as such, is carried on.  In this house the Chancellor, or his vicar the Vice-Chancellor, or in his absence one of his four deputies, termed Pro-Vice-Chancellors, and the two Proctors, either by themselves or their deputies, always preside.  The members of this body are regents, “either regents ‘necessary’ or ’ad placitum,’ that is, on the one hand, all doctors and masters of arts, during the first year of their degree; and on the other, all those who have gone through the year of their necessary regency, and which includes all resident doctors, heads of colleges and halls, professors and public lecturers, public examiners, masters of the schools, or examiners for responsions or ‘little go,’ deans and censors of colleges, and all other M.A.’s during the second year of their regency.”  The business of the house of congregation, which may be regarded as the oligarchical body, is chiefly to grant degrees, and pass graces and dispensations.—­Oxford Guide.

CONSERVATOR.  An officer who has the charge of preserving the rights and privileges of a city, corporation, or community, as in Roman Catholic universities.—­Webster.

CONSILIUM ABEUNDI.  Latin; freely, the decree of departure.  In German universities, the consilium abeundi “consists in expulsion out of the district of the court of justice within which the university is situated.  This punishment lasts a year; after the expiration of which, the banished student can renew his matriculation.”—­Howitt’s Student Life of Germany, Am. ed., p. 33.

CONSISTORY COURT.  In the University of Cambridge, England, there is a consistory court of the Chancellor and of the Commissary.  “For the former,” says the Gradus ad Cantabrigiam, “the Chancellor, and in his absence the Vice-Chancellor, assisted by some of the heads of houses, and one or more doctors of the civil law, administers justice desired by any member of the University, &c.  In the latter, the Commissary acts by authority given him under the seal of the Chancellor, as well in the University as at Stourbridge and Midsummer fairs, and takes cognizance of all offences, &c.  The proceedings are the same in both courts.”

CONSTITUTIONAL.  Among students at the University of Cambridge, Eng., a walk for exercise.

The gallop over Bullington, and the “constitutional” up Headington.—­Lond.  Quart.  Rev., Am. ed., Vol.  LXXIII. p. 53.

Instead of boots he [the Cantab] wears easy low-heeled shoes, for greater convenience in fence and ditch jumping, and other feats of extempore gymnastics which diversify his “constitutionals".—­Bristed’s Five Years in an Eng.  Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 4.

Even the mild walks which are dignified with the name of exercise there, how unlike the Cantab’s constitutional of eight miles in less than two hours.—­Ibid., p. 45.