wholly at their own expence. But now, certain bountiful patrons of learning wisely and benevolently resolved to devise in perpetuity ample revenues for the purpose of providing lodging and entire maintenance for students, and of also providing salaries for Professors to instruct, and Officers to rule, the said students, according to statutes drawn up by the Founders for the due government of their respective establishments, coeval with the institution of Colleges, was, it is conceived, the introduction into the University of a systematic plan of education. We read indeed of a previous division of the Schools into those of grammar, sophistry, arts, divinity, law, medicine, &c.; and, as Mr. Chalmers observes, were we to trust to names only, these seem

66

adequate to a perfect system of education; "but the literary remains of the early ages "afford no great presumption in their fa"vour." The same writer adds: "in point "of fact it is difficult to trace any regular "plan of education, tending to that general "diffusion of learning which now prevails, be"fore the foundation of the first College by

"Walter de Merton; whose statutes afford "an extraordinary instance of a matured sys

tem, and, with very little alteration, have "been found to accommodate themselves to "the progress of science, discipline, and civil economy, in more refined ages","

To go at all into detail relative to the plan on which, in this distinguished University, education is now conducted, would be foreign to the design of the present volume; suffice it to say, that, at Oxford, any benefits that may be supposed derivable from the lecture-system of instruction, may be obtained by the student, who is, at the same time, reaping the more solid advantages, which, at least as far as respects classical literature and the mathematics, are secured by the use of text books, and the instructions of College-Tutors. Every College is as it were a University within itself, in which, while order is preserved and discipline maintained by proper officers, students

" Chalmers's Colleges, Introd. p. 13.

* A list of the University Officers, Professors, &c. will be found in the Appendix.

are instructed in all the liberal sciences by Tutors, who must be persons of approved learning and probity, and of sound religious principles. The University at large is also provided with Public Professors of Divinity, Hebrew, Greek, Civil Law, Medicine, Modern History, Botany, Natural Philosophy, Astronomy, Geometry, Ancient History, Anatomy, Music, Arabic, Poetry, Anglo Saxon, Common Law, and Chemistry. There are also five Public Lecturers, namely, a Clinical Lecturer, and Readers in Anatomy, Arabic, Experimental Philosophy, and Mineralogy. To these may be added the Radclivian Astronomical Observer: and it may be farther observed, that Lectures (some of them free to all students) in various departments of science have been founded, and endowed, in several of the Colleges. We may likewise here mention, that two travelling Fellowships of Medicine, founded by Dr. Radcliffe, with several Law Fellowships and Scholarships, founded by a Mr. Viner, are at the disposal of the University.

Four Terms are kept in the year, namely Michaelmas Term, which begins on the Ith of October, and ends on the 17th of December; Hilary Term, which commences on the 14th of January, and terminates the day before Palm Sunday; Easter Term, the first day of which is the tenth after Easter Sunday, and the last, the day before Whit-Sunday; and Trinity Term, which lasts from the Wednesday after Whit-Sunday till the Saturday after the Act, both days inclusive.

For the degree of Bachelor of Arts, sixteen terms must be kept; and for a Mastership in Arts, twelve more. Seven years afterward the degree of Bachelor in Divinity may be taken; and, in four more, that of Doctor in Divinity. If a Master of Arts chooses to

The Act, or time of completing the superior degree in the several faculties, which always takes place on the Monday after the 7th of July, is generally attended with " many solemnities, and festivities."

z Sons of British and Irish Peers, when matriculated as such, are allowed to stand for a Bachelor's degree at the end of three years.

proceed in Law, he may become a Bachelor in that faculty at the end of three years, and a Doctor at the end of four years more. The degree of Bachelor in Civil Law may be taken, without proceeding through Arts, in seven years, and that of Doctor at the end of four additional years. A Master of Arts may graduate as Bachelor in Medicine, one year after taking the former degree, and as Doctor in the same faculty, in three years more. But for some of the terms, here mentioned as ne cessary to be kept before taking certain degrees, a dispensation is usually allowed.

Previously to taking a Bachelor's degree in Arts, the candidate must, in the first place, (after the beginning of his sixth, and before the end of his ninth term,) publicly respond a before the Masters of the Schools: secondly, at the end of two years from his matricula

a The exercise called responsions, which is performed thrice a year, consists of an examination in the classics, in the rudiments of logic, and in Euclid's Ele

ments.