Page:The American language; an inquiry into the development of English in the United States (IA americanlanguage00menc 0).pdf/187

 is the aim of all social pushers—including, of late, even the Jews —and once they get in they adopt, in so far as they are able, the terminology of its clergy, whose eagerness to appear English is traditional. The fashionable preparatory schools for boys and finishing schools for girls, many of which are directly controlled by this sect, are also very active centers of Anglomania, and have firmly established such Briticisms as headmaster, varsity, chapel (for the service as well as the building), house-master, old boy, monitor, honors, prefect and form, at least in fashionable circles. The late Woodrow Wilson, during his term as president of Princeton, gave currency to various other English academic terms, including preceptor and quad, but the words died with his reforms. At such schools as Groton and Lawrenceville the classes are called forms, and elaborate efforts are made in other ways to imitate the speech of Eton and Harrow. Dr. J. Milnor Coit, while rector of the fashionable St. Paul's School, at Concord, N. H., gave a great impetus to this imitation of English manners. Says a leading authority on American private schools: "Dr. Coit encouraged cricket rather than baseball. The English schoolroom nomenclature, too, was here introduced to the American boy. St. Paul's still has forms, but the removes, evensong and matins, and even the cricket of Dr. Coit's time are now forgotten. Most boys of the three upper forms have separate rooms. The