FRESHMAN.  Pertaining to a Freshman, or to the class called Freshman.

FRESHMAN, BUTLER’S.  At Harvard and Yale Colleges, a Freshman, formerly hired by the Butler, to perform certain duties pertaining to his office, was called by this name.

The Butler may be allowed a Freshman, to do the foregoing duties, and to deliver articles to the students from the Buttery, who shall be appointed by the President and Tutors, and he shall be allowed the same provision in the Hall as the Waiters; and he shall not be charged in the Steward’s quarter-bills under the heads of Steward and Instruction and Sweepers, Catalogue and Dinner.—­Laws of Harv.  Coll., 1793, p. 61.

With being butler’s freshman, and ringing the bell the first year, waiter the three last, and keeping school in the vacations, I rubbed through.—­The Algerine Captive, Walpole, 1797, Vol.  I. p. 54.

See BUTLER, BUTTERY.

FRESHMAN CLUB.  At Hamilton College, it is customary for the new Sophomore Class to present to the Freshmen at the commencement of the first term a heavy cudgel, six feet long, of black walnut, brass bound, with a silver plate inscribed “Freshman Club.”  The club is given to the one who can hold it out at arm’s length the longest time, and the presentation is accompanied with an address from one of the Sophomores in behalf of his class.  He who receives the club is styled the “leader.”  The “leader” having been declared, after an appropriate speech from a Freshman appointed for that purpose, “the class,” writes a correspondent, “form a procession, and march around the College yard, the leader carrying the club before them.  A trial is then made by the class of the virtues of the club, on the Chapel door.”

FRESHMAN, COLLEGE.  In Harvard University, a member of the Freshman Class, whose duties are enumerated below.  “On Saturday, after the exercises, any student not specially prohibited may go out of town.  If the students thus going out of town fail to return so as to be present at evening prayers, they must enter their names with the College Freshman within the hour next preceding the evening study bell; and all students who shall be absent from evening prayers on Saturday must in like manner enter their names.”—­Statutes and Laws of the Univ. in Cam., Mass., 1825, p. 42.

The College Freshman lived in No. 1, Massachusetts Hall, and was commonly called the book-keeper.  The duties of this office are now performed by one of the Proctors.

FRESHMANHOOD.  The state of a Freshman, or the time in which one is a Freshman, which is in duration a year.

  But yearneth not thy laboring heart, O Tom,
  For those dear hours of simple Freshmanhood?
    Harvardiana, Vol.  III. p. 405.

  When to the college I came,
        in the first dear day of my freshhood,
  Like to the school we had left
        I imagined the new situation.
    Ibid., Vol.  III. p. 98.