United States or Guernsey ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Common to all university associations in Germany whether Corps, Landsmannschaft, Burschenschaft, or Turnerschaft is the practice of the Mensur, or student duel.
The "Nation" had a procurator, a treasurer, and a bedell, the last to look after the legal affairs of the association. Drinking was not the supposed purpose of the society, but the Corps mostly assembled, as German Corps do to-day, for drinking purposes. The earliest form of German student associations Was the Landsmannschaft.
To this society, composed of elders and juniors, new-comers, called Pennales, were admitted after painful ceremonies and became something like the "fags" at an English public school. The object of the original Landsmannschaft was to keep alive the spirit of nationality. The object of the German Corps is different.
But generally speaking he, or the majority of him, lays out his time bummeling, beer drinking, and fighting. If he be the son of a wealthy father he joins a Korps to belong to a crack Korps costs about four hundred pounds a year. If he be a middle-class young man, he enrols himself in a Burschenschaft, or a Landsmannschaft, which is a little cheaper.
In a large arm-chair, upon the middle table, sat one of those distinguished individuals, known among German students as a Senior, or Leader of a Landsmannschaft. He was booted and spurred, and wore a very small crimson cap, and a very tight blue jacket, and very long hair, and a very dirty shirt.
Word Of The Day