Thews and sinews have probably as much admiration as is good for them, and nearly as much as they want. On the other hand, the practice of reading has undoubtedly been popularised. It is no longer a clique of students who seek honours; public opinion in and outside the University demands of an increasing majority of men that they should appear to be improving their minds. The Pass-man pure and simple diminishes in numbers annually; no doubt in time he will be a kind of pariah. Colleges compete with each other in the Schools. Evening papers prove by statistics the immorality of an establishment where a scholar who obtains a second is allowed to remain in residence. The stress and strain of the system would be hardly bearable were it not decidedly less difficult to obtain a class in honours than it used to be--not, perhaps, a First, or even a Second; but certainly the lower grades are easier of attainment. Then the variety of subjects is such as to appeal to every one: history, law, theology, natural science (in all its branches), mathematics, all invite the ambitious student whose relations wish him to take honours, and will be quite satisfied with a Fourth; and eminent specialists compete for the privilege of instructing him. The tutor who complained to the undergraduate that he had sixteen pupils was met by the just retort that the undergraduate had sixteen tutors.
[Illustration: _GOLF AT OXFORD. THE PLATEAU HOLE AND ARNOLD’S TREE. Drawn by Lancelot Speed._]
The relation of the University to the undergraduate is twofold; it is ’kept’--as a witty scholar of Dublin is fabled to have inscribed over the door of his Dean, ’for his amusement and instruction’--and if the latter is frequently formal, it is still more often and in a great variety of ways ’informal,’ and not communicated through his tutor. Not to mention the many college literary societies--every college has one at least, and they are all ready to discuss any topic, from the Origin of Evil to bimetallism--there are now in the University various learned societies, modelled and sometimes called after the German _Seminar_, which are intended to supplement the deficiencies of tuition, and to keep the serious student abreast of the newest erudition which has been ’made in Germany,’ or anywhere else on the Continent. Then there is the Union as a school of eloquence for the political aspirant; or the ’private business’ of his college debating society, where a vote of censure on Ministers is sometimes emphasised by their ejection into the quadrangle, may qualify him for the possible methods of a future House of Commons.