used in
the Yorkshire dialect with the meaning of a "silly fellow." Mr.
Halliwell, in his Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words,
remarks: "It is not applied to an idiot, but to one who has been
doing a foolish action."

_O_.

OAK. In the English universities, the outer door of a student's
room.

No man has a right to attack the rooms of one with whom he is not
in the habit of intimacy. From ignorance of this axiom I had near
got a horse-whipping, and was kicked down stairs for going to a
wrong _oak_, whose tenant was not in the habit of taking jokes of
this kind.--_The Etonian_, Vol. II. p. 287.

A pecker, I must explain, is a heavy pointed hammer for splitting
large coals; an instrument often put into requisition to force
open an _oak_ (an outer door), when the key of the spring latch
happens to be left inside, and the scout has gone away.--_The
Collegian's Guide_, p. 119.

Every set of rooms is provided with an _oak_ or outer door, with a
spring lock, of which the master has one latch-key, and the
servant another.--_Ibid._, p. 141.

"To _sport oak_, or a door," says the Gradus ad Cantabrigiam, "is,
in the modern phrase, to exclude duns, or other unpleasant
intruders." It generally signifies, however, nothing more than
locking or fastening one's door for safety or convenience.

I always "_sported my oak_" whenever I went out; and if ever I
found any article removed from its usual place, I inquired for it;
and thus showed I knew where everything was last
placed.--_Collegian's Guide_, p. 141.

If you persist, and say you cannot join them, you must _sport your
oak_, and shut yourself into your room, and all intruders
out.--_Ibid._, p. 340.

Used also in some American colleges.

And little did they dream who knocked hard and often at his _oak_
in vain, &c.--_Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. X. p. 47.

OATHS. At Yale College, those who were engaged in the government
were formerly required to take the oaths of allegiance and
abjuration appointed by the Parliament of England. In his
Discourse before the Graduates of Yale College, President Woolsey
gives the following account of this obligation:--

"The charter of 1745 imposed another test in the form of a
political oath upon all governing officers in the College. They
were required before they undertook the execution of their trusts,
or within three months after, 'publicly in the College hall [to]
take the oaths, and subscribe the declaration, appointed b