o bidders could be obtained, given away.

AUDIT. In the University of Cambridge, England, a meeting of the
Master and Fellows to examine or _audit_ the college accounts.
This is succeeded by a feast, on which occasion is broached the
very best ale, for which reason ale of this character is called
"audit ale."--_Grad. ad Cantab._

This use of the word thirst made me drink an extra bumper of
"_Audit_" that very day at dinner.--_Alma Mater_, Vol. I. p. 3.

After a few draughts of the _Audit_, the company
disperse.--_Ibid._ Vol. I. p. 161.

AUTHORITY. "This word," says Mr. Pickering, in his Vocabulary, "is
used in some of the States, in speaking collectively of the
Professors, &c. of our colleges, to whom the _government_ of these
institutions is intrusted."

Every Freshman shall be obliged to do any proper errand or message
for the _Authority_ of the College.--_Laws Middlebury Coll._,
1804, p. 6.

AUTOGRAPH BOOK. It is customary at Yale College for each member of
the Senior Class, before the close of his collegiate life, to
obtain, in a book prepared for that purpose, the signatures of the
President, Professors, Tutors, and of all his classmates, with
anything else which they may choose to insert. Opposite the
autographs of the college officers are placed engravings of them,
so far as they are obtainable; and the whole, bound according to
the fancy of each, forms a most valuable collection of agreeable
mementos.

When news of his death reached me. I turned to my _book of
classmate autographs_, to see what he had written there, and to
read a name unusually dear.--_Scenes and Characters in College_,
New Haven, 1847, p. 201.

AVERAGE BOOK. At Harvard College, a book in which the marks
received by each student, for the proper performance of his
college duties, are entered; also the deductions from his rank
resulting from misconduct. These unequal data are then arranged in
a mean proportion, and the result signifies the standing which the
student has held for a given period.

In vain the Prex's grave rebuke,
Deductions from the _average book_.
_MS. Poem_, W.F. Allen, 1848.

_B_.

B.A. An abbreviation of _Baccalaureus Artium_, Bachelor of Arts.
The first degree taken by a student at a college or university.
Sometimes written A.B., which is in accordance with the proper
Latin arrangement. In American colleges this degree is conferred
in course on each member of the Senior Class in good stan