MASTER.  The head of a college.  This word is used in the English Universities, and was formerly in use in this country, in this sense.

The Master of the College, or “Head of the House,” is a D.D., who has been a Fellow.  He is the supreme ruler within the college Trails, and moves about like an Undergraduate’s deity, keeping at an awful distance from the students, and not letting himself be seen too frequently even at chapel.  Besides his fat salary and house, he enjoys many perquisites and privileges, not the least of which is that of committing matrimony.—­Bristed’s Five Years in an Eng.  Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 16.

Every schollar, that on proofe is found able to read the originals of the Old and New Testament into the Latine tongue, &c. and at any publick act hath the approbation of the Overseers and Master of the Colledge, is fit to be dignified with his first degree.—­New England’s First Fruits, in Mass.  Hist.  Coll., Vol.  I. pp. 245, 246.

2.  A title of dignity in colleges and universities; as, Master of Arts.—­Webster.

They, likewise, which peruse the questiones published by the Masters.—­Mather’s Magnalia, B. IV. pp. 131, 132.

MASTER OF THE KITCHEN.  In Harvard College, a person who formerly made all the contracts, and performed all the duties necessary for the providing of commons, under the direction of the Steward.  He was required to be “discreet and capable.”—­Laws of Harv.  Coll., 1814, p. 42.

MASTER’S QUESTION.  A proposition advanced by a candidate for the degree of Master of Arts.

In the older American colleges it seems to have been the established custom, at a very early period, for those who proceeded Masters, to maintain in public questions or propositions on scientific or moral topics.  Dr. Cotton Mather, in his Magnalia, p. 132, referring to Harvard College, speaks of “the questiones published by the Masters,” and remarks that they “now and then presume to fly as high as divinity.”  These questions were in Latin, and the discussions upon them were carried on in the same language.  The earliest list of Masters’ questions extant was published at Harvard College in the year 1655.  It was entitled, “Quaestiones in Philosophia Discutiendae ... in comitiis per Inceptores in artib[us].”  In 1669 the title was changed to “Quaestiones pro Modulo Discutiendae ... per Inceptores.”  The last Masters’ questions were presented at the Commencement in 1789.  The next year Masters’ exercises were substituted, which usually consisted of an English Oration, a Poem, and a Valedictory Latin Oration, delivered by three out of the number of candidates for the second degree.  A few years after, the Poem was omitted.  The last Masters’ exercises were performed in the year 1843.  At Yale College, from 1787 onwards, there were no Masters’ valedictories, nor syllogistic disputes in Latin, and in 1793 there were no Master’s exercises at all.