COLLEGE (Lat. collegium, a collection or assemblage). In its Roman signification, a C. signified any association of persons for a specific purpose. In many respects it was synonymous with corpus, a body or collection of members, a corporation—with univer sitas, a whole as contrasted with its parts—and with societas, a company or partnership, as opposed to all the members of which it was composed. A Roman C. had a common chest, and it could sue and be sued in the name of its manager (actor or syndicus), just like an incorporation with us. It required also to be incorporated by some sort of pub lic authority, springing either from the senate or the emperor. A C. could not consist of fewer than three persons, according to the well-known maxim, "three make a col lege" (Dig. 50, tit. 16, 1. 85). Some of these colleges were for purely mercantile pur poses, but there were others which had religious objects in view, such as the collegia pon tificum, augurum, etc., and which thus made a sort of approach to a C. in the modern sense. With us, a C. is an incorporation, company, or society of persons, joined together generally for literary or scientific purposes, and frequently possessing peculiar or exclu sive privileges. See Pitysiciaxs, COLLEGE OF; SURGEONS, COLLEGE OF. Very often in England a C. is an endowed institution connected with a university, having for its object the promotion of learning. In this relation, a C. is a sub-corporation, i.e., a mem ber of the body known as the university. The constitution of a C. in this, its most general and proper sense, depends wholly on the will of the founder, and on the regula tions which may be imposed by the visitor (q.v.) whom lie has appointed. For a more
detailed acceount of C. in this sense, See UNIVERSITY, OXFORD, CAMBRIDGE, PARIS, EDLNIIURGII, etc. In Scotland and in America, the distinction between the C. as the member, and the university as the body, has been lost sight of; and we consequently hear of the one and the other indiscriminately granting degrees, a function which in the English and in the original European view of the matter belonged exclusively to university. Where there is but one C. in a university, as in the case in all the universi ties of Scotland, the two bodies are of course identical, though the functions which they perform are different. In Germany, there are no colleges in the English sense; and though the universities in that country perform precisely the same functions as in Scot land, the verbal confusion between the C. and the university is avoided by the latter performing the functions of both in its own name, as two separate parts of its proper duties. In France, C. has a meaning totally different from that which we attach to it: it is a school, corresponding, however, more to the gymnasium (q.v.) of Germany than to the grammar-school of this country. All the colleges are placed under the university of France, to which the centralizing tendencies of that country have given a meaning which also differs widely from that which the term university bears in England. See UNIVERSITY OF PRANCE.