Vindication"-Opposing and responding-"Schemes"-Doing austens

mplete absurdity and futility of cramming dull stuff for no apparent good reasons, when there is such a glorious time to be had doing nothing in the mornings and "sweat

lay hands on, to the schools, and if, on his final exit from their clutches, they are not satisfied with the results of his cramming, they invert their thumbs and down he goes! It matters not

. He made the statement boldly in the face of the high reputation of the Dons for learning and classical knowledge, in defiance of the wrath of t

form to mind exercises; if he is studious, he is morose, and a heavy bookish fellow; if he keeps a cellar of win

he had riches or not-"was under no restraint, and never called upon to attend either lectures, or chapel, or hall. My tutor, an excellent and worthy man, according to the practise of all tutors at that moment, gave himself no concern about his pupils. I never saw him but during a fortnight, when I took it into my head to be taught trigo

bbon quoted his own experiences. The learned doctor to whose care he was first confided, described as "one of the best of the tribe," had suggested that Gibbon should read the comedies of Terence every morning with him. "During the first weeks," wrote Gibbon, "I constantly attended these lessons in my tutor's rooms; but as they appeared equally devoid of profit and pleasure, I was once tempted to try the experiment of a formal apology. The apology was accepted with a smile. I repeated the offence wit

, and watching over the behaviour of his disciple, I was never summoned to attend even the ceremony of a lecture; and, excepting one voluntary visit to his rooms, during the eight months of his titular office, the tutor and pupil lived in the same college as strangers to each other." These accusations against the Magdalen dis

f they can. Therefore it is surely the place of the tutor to put his foot dow

d politics and consequent individual preferment of far greater importance than the mere conning of pupils' work, it is not to be wondered at that the only men who did any work were those who were "bookish" by nature and preferred a quiet studious life to one of revelry and slacking. For the most part these worked independently of

ther edifying novel. When this exercise is duly performed by both parties, they have a right to the title and insignia of Sophs; but not before they have been formally created by one of the regent-masters.... This work done, a great progress is made towards the wished-for honour of a Bachelor's degree. There remain only one or two trifling forms, and another disputation, almost exactly similar to doing generals, but called answering under bachelor, previous to the awful examination. Every candidate is obliged to be examined in the whole circle of the sciences by three Masters of Arts of his own choice. The examination is to be held in one of the public schools, and to continue from nine o'clock till eleven. The masters take a most solemn oath, that they will examine properly and impartially. Dreadful as all this appears, there is always found to be more of appearance in it than reality, for the greatest dunce usually gets his testimonium signed with as much ease and credit as the finest genius. The manner of proceeding is as follows: The poor young man to be examined in the sciences often knows no more of them than his bedmaker, and the masters who examine are sometimes equally unacquainted with such mysteries. But schemes, as they are called, or little books, containing forty or fifty questions on each science, are handed down, from age to age, from one to another. The candidate to be examined employs three or four days in learning these by heart, and the examiners, having done the same before him when they were examined, know what questions to ask, and so all goes on smoothly. When the candidate has displayed his universal knowledge of the sciences, he is to display his skill in philology. One of the masters, therefore, desires him

njoy himself as best he could for four years. Then, having succeeded in getting himself fairly comfortably in debt, having learned how to string off a sonnet to the

degree of Master of Arts. None but the initiated can know what determining, doing quodlibets, and doing austens mean. I have not room to enter into a minute description of such contemptible minuti?. Let it be sufficient to say, that these exercises consist of disputations of syllogisms, procured and uttered nearly in the same places, time, and manner, as we have already seen them in doing generals

scribing to a lie, and was sent down as a not undistinguished man afte

one more learned things for his breaking-up task than were required of an Oxford man after seven years' residence. He more than bore out Knox's words as to the custom of making one's examiner drunk and so avoiding the irksome necessity of being asked awkward questions by him. "It is also well known," he wrote, "to be the custom for the candidates either to present their examiners with a piece of gold, or to give them an handsome ent

determining, decided the days upon which the candidates were to present themselves. On certain days called "gracious" days, the examiners were only required to stay in the schools for half the usual time. The consequence was, explained Terrae, "The collectors having it in their power to di

give the collector a "broad or half a broad." In return for this douceur "Mr Collector," said Amhurst, "entertains his benefactors with a good supper and as much

estion of obtaining a degree, were a farce and a sham, and that the authorities cared little who got

absurd. If all Magdalen men were bound to attend, why was Gibbon allowed to absent himself, or, if not allowed, why was he not hauled over the coals?-and it is ridiculous to suppose that Gibbon's example was not followed by scores of fellow collegians. The present-day "colleckers," held terminally, are, more or less, in the nature of a joke, but in those days, in spite of Hurdis's burning loyalty to Magdalen, the following exercises which correspond to th

r he must make hi

Sallust and the Chara

books of Virgil's Aeneis and the fir

six books of the Aeneis and the

which sacred books the persons examined are always called upon t

er I

ance to the Clois

the Undergraduate must

's Commentaries, and the fir

ero de Oratore, and the sec

ro de Officiis and the Dion

d St John, producing a collection of observations

ear he must make hi

e first six books of Livy

on's Memorabilia, and in Horac

m, and in the first, third, eighth, tenth, th

rst four epistles of St Paul,

last year he must mak

ix books of the 'Annals of Tacitus

and in those of Ligarius and Archias; and also in those Orat

ues' of Plato published by Dr Fors

n Epistles of St Paul and the Epistles g

hat only those Dons were present "who may please to attend!" Having digested already some few facts concerning the habits and hobbies of the eighteenth-century Don, as well as the liberty accorded to gentlemen commoners, there is no need to waste sympathy on "every individual Undergraduate" of Magdale