SUSPENSION TO THE ROOM.  In Princeton College, one of the punishments for certain offences subjects a student to confinement to his chamber and exclusion from his class, and requires him to recite to a teacher privately for a certain time.  This is technically called suspension to the room.

SWEEP, SWEEPER.  The name given at Yale and other colleges to the person whose occupation it is to sweep the students’ rooms, make their beds, &c.

Then how welcome the entrance of the sweep, and how cutely we fling jokes at each other through the dust!—­Yale Lit.  Mag., Vol.  XIV. p. 223.

Knocking down the sweep, in clearing the stairs, we described a circle to our room.—­The Yale Banger, Nov. 10, 1846.

  A Freshman by the faithful sweep
  Was found half buried in soft sleep.
    Ibid., Nov. 10, 1846.

  With fingers dirty and black,
    From lower to upper room,
  A College Sweep went dustily round,
    Plying his yellow broom.
    Songs of Yale, 1853, p. 12.

In the Yale Literary Magazine, Vol.  III. p. 144, is “A tribute to certain Members of the Faculty, whose names are omitted in the Catalogue,” in which appropriate praise is awarded to these useful servants.

The Steward ... engages sweepers for the College.—­Laws Harv.  Coll., 1816, p. 48.

One of the sweepers finding a parcel of wood,... the defendant, in the absence of the owner of the wood, authorizes the sweeper to carry it away.—­Scenes and Characters in College, p. 98.

SWELL BLOCK.  In the University of Virginia, a sobriquet applied to dandies and vain pretenders.

SWING.  At several American colleges, the word swing is used for coming out with a secret society badge; 1st, of the society, to swing out the new men; and, 2d, of the men, intransitively, to swing, or to swing out, i.e. to appear with the badge of a secret society.  Generally, to swing out signifies to appear in something new.

The new members have “swung out,” and all again is harmony.—­Sophomore Independent, Union College, Nov. 1854.

SYNDIC.  Latin, syndicus; Greek, [Greek:  sundikos; sun], with, and [Greek:  dikae], justice.

An officer of government, invested with different powers in different countries.  Almost all the companies in Paris, the University, &c., have their syndics.  The University of Cambridge has its syndics, who are chosen from the Senate to transact special business, as the regulation of fees, forming of laws, inspecting the library, buildings, printing, &c.—­Webster.  Cam.  Cal.

SYNDICATE.  A council or body of syndics.

The state of instruction in and encouragement to the study of Theology were thus set forth in the report of a syndicate appointed to consider the subject in 1842.—­Bristed’s Five Years in an Eng.  Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 293.