see.

PREPOSITOR. Latin. A scholar appointed by the master to overlook
the rest.

And when requested for the salt-cellar, I handed it with as much
trepidation as a _praeposter_ gives the Doctor a list, when he is
conscious of a mistake in the excuses.--_The Etonian_, Vol. II. p.
281.

PRESENTATION DAY. At Yale College, Presentation Day is the time
when the Senior Class, having finished the prescribed course of
study, and passed a satisfactory examination, are _presented_ by
the examiners to the President, as properly qualified to be
admitted to the degree of Bachelor of Arts. A distinguished
professor of the institution where this day is observed has kindly
furnished the following interesting historical account of this
observance.

"This presentation," he writes, "is a ceremony of long standing.
It has certainly existed for more than a century. It is very early
alluded to, not as a _novelty_, but as an established custom.
There is now less formality on such occasions, but the substantial
parts of the exercises are retained. The examination is now begun
on Saturday and finished on Tuesday, and the day after, Wednesday,
six weeks before the public Commencement, is the day of
Presentation. There have sometimes been literary exercises on that
day by one or more of the candidates, and sometimes they have been
omitted. I have in my possession a Latin Oration, what, I suppose,
was called a _Cliosophic Oration_, pronounced by William Samuel
Johnson in 1744, at the presentation of his class. Sometimes a
member of the class exhibited an English Oration, which was
responded to by some one of the College Faculty, generally by one
who had been the principal instructor of the class presented. A
case of this kind occurred in 1776, when Mr., afterwards President
Dwight, responded to the class orator in an address, which, being
delivered the same July in which Independence was declared, drew,
from its patriotic allusions, as well as for other reasons,
unusual attention. It was published,--a rare thing at that period.
Another response was delivered in 1796, by J. Stebbins, Tutor,
which was likewise published. There has been no exhibition of the
kind since. For a few years past, there have been an oration and a
poem exhibited by members of the graduating class, at the time of
presentation. The appointments for these exercises are made by the
class.

"So much of an exhibition as there was at the presentation in 1778
has not