of removing suspicion of disloyalty, and conforming the practice in the College to that required by the law in the English universities.  This oath was taken until it became an unlawful one, when the State assumed complete sovereignty at the Revolution.  For some years afterwards, the officers took the oath of fidelity to the State of Connecticut, and I believe that the last instance of this occurred at the very end of the eighteenth century.”—­p. 40.

In the Diary of President Stiles, under the date of July 8, 1778, is the annexed entry, in which is given the formula of the oath required by the State:—­

“The oath of fidelity administered to me by the Hon. Col.  Hamlin, one of the Council of the State of Connecticut, at my inauguration.

“’You, Ezra Stiles, do swear by the name of the ever-living God, that you will be true and faithful to the State of Connecticut, as a free and independent State, and in all things do your duty as a good and faithful subject of the said State, in supporting the rights, liberties, and privileges of the same.  So help you God.’

“This oath, substituted instead of that of allegiance to the King by the Assembly of Connecticut, May, 1777, to be taken by all in this State; and so it comes into use in Yale College.”—­Woolsey’s Hist.  Discourse, Appendix, p. 117.

[Greek:  Hoi Aristoi.] Greek; literally, the bravest.  At Princeton College, the aristocrats, or would-be aristocrats, are so called.

[Greek:  Hoi Polloi.] Greek; literally, the many.

See POLLOI.

OLD BURSCH.  A name given in the German universities to a student during his fourth term.  Students of this term are also designated Old Ones.

As they came forward, they were obliged to pass under a pair of naked swords, held crosswise by two Old Ones.—­Longfellow’s Hyperion, p. 110.

OLD HOUSE.  A name given in the German universities to a student during his fifth term.

OPPONENCY.  The opening of an academical disputation; the proposition of objections to a tenet; an exercise for a degree.—­Todd.

Mr. Webster remarks, “I believe not used in America.”

In the old times, the university discharged this duty [teaching] by means of the public readings or lectures,... and by the keeping of acts and opponencies—­being certain viva voce disputations —­by the students.—­The English Universities and their Reforms, in Blackwood’s Magazine, Feb. 1849.

OPPONENT.  In universities and colleges, where disputations are carried on, the opponent is, in technical application, the person who begins the dispute by raising objections to some tenet or doctrine.

OPTIME.  The title of those who stand in the second and third ranks of honors, immediately after the Wranglers, in the University of Cambridge, Eng.  They are called respectively Senior and Junior Optimes.