PEMBROKE COLLEGE

PEMBROKE COLLEGE, erected in 1624 by Thomas Tetsdale and Richard Wightwick, out of Broadgates Hall, a most ancient place of academical study, in which Bishop Bonner, Beaumont the dramatist, and Sir Thomas Browne had been students. The name was given in compliment to the Earl of Pembroke, then chancellor of the university, and in hope of a godfather's gift from him, which his death soon after prevented. Members of this college (and hall) have filled the three Anglican primatial sees of Canterbury (Moore, 1783), York (Yong, 1561), Armagh (Newcome, 1795). Dr Johnson was a student here.

QUEEN'S COLLEGE, founded in 1340 by Robert de Eglesfield, chaplain to Philippa, queen of Edward III. He arranged that the queen-consort of England for the time being should be patroness of the college; hence its name, and several donations by queens of England when the college was in difficulties. The college was rebuilt in 1707-14. Henry V. is said to have been a student here for a short time; and other members were Cardinal Beaufort, Wycherley, Addison, and Collins. The college retains the old ceremony of bringing in the 'Boar's Head,' with the traditional song, on Christmas Day.

ST ALBAN HALL, founded about 1230, was united to Merton College in 1882.

ST EDMUND HALL, founded about 1260. Queen's College appoints the principal. Thomas Hearne, the antiquary, was long resident here.

ST JOHN'S COLLEGE, founded in 1555 by Sir Thomas White. The chapel, hall, entrance tower, and part of the street front of the outer quadrangle are substantially those of St Bernard's College, a house of the Cistercian monks, built here 1437-1530. The garden front of the inner quadrangle was built by Archbishop Laud (q.v.) in 1631. Members of this college have deserved well of the university, Archbishop Laud and Dr Richard Rawlinson having been principal benefactors to the Bodleian. Edmund Campion, Shirley the dramatist, Edmund Calamy, and Dean Mansell are other St John's names.

[ST MARY HALL, founded in 1333 by Oriel College, retained a close connection with Oriel, a fellow or ex-fellow of Oriel having generally been principal, till, as contemplated by the statutes of 1877, it was in 1896 incorporated with Oriel College.]

SHELDONIAN THEATRE, built in 1669 by Archbishop Sheldon for the holding in it of the great university degree ceremonies. These had hitherto been held in St Mary's Church, but the riotous conduct of the spectators (in 1652 the undergraduates had to be kept in order by soldiers of the garrison) often scandalised those who had regard to the sacred character of the building. The 'act' (the degree-ceremony in which all M.A. degrees and doctors' degrees granted during the year were supposed to be completed by 'inception') is now superseded by the Encaenia, in which prize compositions are recited (among them the 'Newdigate,' q.v.), honorary degrees are conferred, and a Latin oration delivered.

TRINITY COLLEGE, founded in 1554 by Sir Thomas Pope. The library is part of Durham College which stood here (see DURHAM); the hall dates from 1620; the chapel, with its fine carved cedar, from 1694; the garden quadrangle was built 1665-1728; and large new buildings were added in 1887. The 'Lime Walk,' planted in 1713, is the feature of the garden. Kettell Hall, on Broad Street, near the college, built in 1615 by Ralph Kettell (president of Trinity), is a characteristic example of Oxford architecture of the period. Chillingworth, Selden, Denham, Aubrey, Thomas Warton, Landor, Newman, and Freeman were members.

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE had its origin in an endowment left in 1249 by William of Durham for the maintenance of some graduates of the university. This was at first administered by the university itself, and the institution called the university's Great Hall, 'Magna Aula Universitatis,' in distinction probably from some smaller 'halls' which the university owned. Afterwards the administration of the trust was committed to the beneficiaries themselves; and, under the influence of the example of Walter de Merton's foundation, the society became a college. In the 14th century there grew up a legend that the building occupied the site of a college founded by King Alfred, destroyed in the Danish invasion. By a later effort of imagination King Alfred was said to have founded University College in 872 A.D. University College was a great power in Oxford in 1686-88, when its master, Obadiah Walker, was the chief agent in the Roman Catholic effort to reconquer Oxford. The lawyers Lord Eldon and Lord Stowell, Sir William Jones, and the poet Shelley were members of this college.

WADHAM COLLEGE, founded by Dorothy, widow of Sir Nicholas Wadham, in 1613, on the site of the old Austin Friary. The beautiful gardens of this college perhaps owe something to the labours of the friars. The college buildings are an exquisite specimen of Jacobean work; the street front in particular is one of the prettiest bits in Oxford. Admiral Blake was a student here, and his portrait is in the hall. The Royal Society took its origin in meetings in the rooms of Dr John Wilkins, warden of Wadham.

WORCESTER COLLEGE, founded by Sir Thomas Cooke of Worcestershire in 1714, in Gloucester Hall. Gloucester Hall had in 1560 succeeded Gloucester College, a college for Benedictine monks, founded in 1283, dissolved at the Reformation. Each monastery had its own building; and a row of these, forming one side of Worcester College quadrangle, each with the coat of arms of its monastery carved in stone over the door, is one of the most interesting bits of old Oxford. During the earlier part of Eliza- beth's reign Gloucester Hall was filled with Roman Catholic students, their tutors being graduates who had been ejected from their fellowships in various colleges for refusing the oath of allegiance. In the 17th century there was for some time a project to found here a college for the education of clergy of the orthodox Greek Church. Lovelace, Sir Kenelm Digby, and De Quincey were members.

The university of Oxford is a corporation under the title of 'the chancellor, masters, and scholars of the university of Oxford.' It consists of a body of graduates (masters of arts and graduates in law, medicine, and divinity) who are the governing members of the corporation, and of a body of undergraduates (and bachelors of arts) who are 'in statu pupillari,' that is, subject to the government of the officers of the university and without voice in university business. The statutes by which the university is governed are partly the code promulgated in the chancery of Archbishop Laud, partly the body of enactments issued by a parliamentary commission in 1877. The business of the university is formally transacted in three houses: (1) the Ancient House of Congregation, consisting of masters of arts of less than two years' standing, heads of colleges, deans of degrees of colleges, professors, examiners, &c., in which the ceremonial business of conferring ordinary degrees is conducted; (2) the House of Congregation, constituted by act of parliament in 1853, consisting of university officers, professors, and resident graduates (in 1891 there were 391 graduates resident), in which proposed statutes are submitted for discussion and vote; (3) the House of Convocation, consisting of all graduates who have kept their names on the books (5966 in 1891), which is in theory the supreme governing body of the university. Thus, all statutes and decrees of the university are voted upon in convocation, and it is convocation which elects the two members whom the university returns to parliament. Practically, however, the business of the university is in the hands of the Hebdomadal Council and of small committees, called delegacies (or curators). Council began as a committee of heads of houses, invented under Stuart absolutism to control the free spirit of the university. It now consists of the vice-chancellor and proctors, and eighteen persons elected by convocation, six being heads of houses, six professors, and six graduates. Council retains the initiative in all legislation, the control of most of the negotiations in which the university takes part, the nomination of persons to receive honorary degrees, and the like. Committees govern the institutions of the university, such as the Bodleian Library, the University Chest, the University Press, and the Museum. The chief officers of the university are (1) the chancellor, the official head of the university, generally a peer of the realm, elected for life by convocation; (2) the vice-chancellor, nominated by the chancellor from the heads of houses in rotation, and holding office (as a rule) for four years; (3) the two proctors, holding office for a year, elected by the graduates of the colleges according to a cycle, each college getting its turn to elect a proctor every eleventh year. The proctors are specially charged with the discipline of the university as regards its junior members. Each college of the university is a distinct corporation, self-governed according to its own statutes under sanction of the parliamentary commissions of 1852 and 1877.

The earliest historical notice of Oxford shows also its importance in early times. In 912 A.D. the Saxon Chronicle records that, on the death of Ethelred, Edward (the son of Alfred) took possession 'of London and Oxford and all the lands obedient to those cities.' The remarkable Castle mound, now shamefully included in the precincts of the county gaol, was heaped up at this period, being part of the great system of fortifications which were then raised against the Danes. During the troubled years which follow Oxford is frequently mentioned, its position just between Mercia and Wessex rendering it important as a citadel against invasion, and as a place of parley between Danes and Saxons. It may be inferred that at the Norman Conquest Oxford offered a stubborn resistance to the invader (1) from the great number of 'waste' houses mentioned in the Domesday survey; (2) from the vastness of the work erected by the conqueror's governor, Robert Doyley, to overawe the city and district. Two portions of this work remain, the tower (now of St Michael's Church) which commanded the approach to the assailable North Gate of the city, and the great keep of the Castle (now in the precincts of the gaol). In the contest for the crown between the Empress Maud and Stephen (1142) Oxford was again a place of capital importance, Maud taking refuge in Oxford when driven from London, and escaping over the frozen Thames when the castle was about to surrender to Stephen after ten weeks' siege. Here in 1258 the 'mad parliament' enforced on Henry III. the scheme of reform known as the Provisions of Oxford (see MONTFORT). From this date Oxford as a town ceases to be of national importance, except for a few years in the heat of the great Civil War, when Charles I. made it the centre of his operations, the station of his court, and the meeting-place of the 'parliament' which he had brought together in opposition to that 'Long' one at Westminster.

But at the very time when Oxford, as a city, was losing its political and strategical importance there was growing up within it a distinct, and destined often to be a hostile, corporation which was to make it for centuries the intellectual capital of England. The word 'university' implies now a corporate body of teachers and students, established for the pursuit of the higher branches of learning, endowed with privileges and protected by charters granted by sovereign powers; and we find by the end of the 12th century and the beginning of the 13th a corporation of this kind established in Oxford. But this corporation must have been only the official recognition of a guild of teachers with their pupils which was already in existence in the city; and a guild of this kind must, in its turn, have been the development of accidental, and perhaps temporary, assemblages of teachers and students. The beginning of the university of Oxford is therefore to be carried as far back as the earlier third of the 12th century; Thibaut d'Estampes (Theobaldus Stampensis) about 1120, and Robert Pullein in 1133, being recorded to have taught in Oxford. The university, thus begun under Henry I. (who in 1130 built as a royal residence Beaumont Palace in the north suburb of Oxford, in which palace Richard Cœur de Lion was born in 1157), rapidly grew in numbers and in prestige; and by the beginning of the 13th century we find popes and kings interested in its fortunes, its scholars numbered perhaps by thousands and not by hundreds, and the feuds between it and the town occasionally events of almost national importance. Teachers and scholars in this early university were of the secular clergy; they lived and taught in houses ('halls') and lecture-rooms ('schools') hired from the townsmen; and discipline was practically non-existent.

The fame of the university attracted to Oxford the four great orders of mendicant friars immediately after their arrival in England, the Dominican (Black) Friars coming in 1221, the Franciscan (Grey) Friars in 1224, the Carmelite (White) Friars in 1253, and the Austin Friars in 1268. The friars, unlike the older orders of monks, who had stood aloof from secular learning, threw themselves with enthusiasm into the studies of the university; and the 'schools' in their convents and their lecturers soon eclipsed the fame of the secular schools and teachers. That Oxford can boast the greatest names in mediæval learning and legend, Roger Bacon and Friar Bungay, is due to these conventual schools. So threatening did the supremacy of the friars become that the university in the early 14th century had a hard fight with them to retain the control of its own education (see the Rev. H. Rashdall's paper on 'The Friars Preachers versus the University' in the Oxford Historical Society's Collectanea, vol. ii. 1890).

The intellectual triumphs of the friars kindled the spark of emulation in the older monastic orders, and they in their turn began to found conventual schools at Oxford for students of their own body. The Benedictines had four colleges in Oxford: Gloucester College, founded in 1283, part of whose buildings are now in Worcester College; Durham College, perhaps begun in 1290, partly now in Trinity College; Canterbury College, founded in 1363, now taken into the site of Christ Church; and St Mary's College, founded in 1435, now a dwelling-house belonging to Brasenose. For the Cistercians St Bernard's College was founded in 1437, and parts of this building are still found in St John's College.

The introduction into the university of the conventual system, with the severity of its discipline, the interpenetrating stimulus of its common life, and the efficiency of its personal tuition, suggested a change in the university of secular students which was to effect in time an entire revolution in its form. In 1264 Walter de Merton conceived the plan of bringing together into a common home a number of secular students, engaged in academic studies but subject to something like conventual discipline. In 1274 he moved his college (which he had established at Malden in Surrey) to Oxford. Two other institutions, which had been founded in Oxford at a slightly earlier date, soon, under the influence of the new idea, took the shape of Balliol and University Colleges. By 1525 ten other colleges had been instituted, among them such great designs as New College, Magdalen College, and Wolsey's Cardinal College (afterwards reconstituted by Henry VIII. as Christ Church, with a fraction of its former endowment).

The Reformation of religion, and the dissolution of the monasteries which it carried with it, destroyed half the glory of Oxford. Two abbeys, five friaries, and five monastic colleges ceased to exist; and the western and south-western quarters, which had contained the finest buildings of the city, became heaps of stones out of which the citizens of Oxford quarried building material. During the Romanist reaction under Queen Mary something was done to repair the loss thus inflicted: Trinity College in 1554 and St John's in 1555 restoring to Oxford Durham College and St Bernard's College. Jesus College, founded nearly twenty years later, in Elizabeth's reign, was the first of Protestant colleges. The more settled times of the early Stuarts patronised the gown more liberally; Wadham College coming in 1613, Pembroke in 1624. Then came the great catastrophe of the Civil War, and learning and the encouragement of learning ceased. The years passed to 1714 before a new foundation arose in Oxford, in Sir Thomas Cooke's Worcester College; and, except for the abortive attempt (1740-1818) to erect Hart Hall into a college, that example found no imitator till our own times, when the foundations of Keble College in 1870 and of Hertford College in 1874, followed by the transference to Oxford of Mansfield College and of Manchester New College (though these two colleges are not incorporated in the university), bear witness to the new life which has begun to throb alike in the Anglican Church and in Non-conformity.

In Elizabeth's reign, and still more under the Stuarts, we have to mark a very strong desire on the part of the supreme power to compel all students in the university to reside within the walls of the colleges and the halls (then five in number, now reduced to two). The strong opposition of minorities, in matters both of polity and faith, rendered English sovereigns and their ministers suspicious and intolerant of students and teachers who were not directly under their control; and to secure this control they required that all students should reside in the colleges, where they were under the charge of governors appointed by court influence and responsible to the court. From this time, therefore, we have to date the disappearance of the old university and the development of that peculiarly English form, a university of colleges.

In the following six features the university of Oxford stands in marked contrast to universities out of England. (1) The College System. Before a person becomes a member of the university he must first of all become a member of one of the twenty-one colleges or two halls; and the moment he ceases to be a member of one of these societies his actual membership of the university is also terminated. This means that the Oxford undergraduate is not left as a unit in a great body of two or three thousand, but is made a member of a much smaller body of perhaps eighty to two hundred members, and is therefore subject to closer personal scrutiny and to stronger influences of social opinion than would be possible in universities differently constituted. It is true that the influence of this common life is partially discounted in the case of students from the public schools, where similar influences have already formed their character; but in the case of students from small schools or solitary homes the vigorous social life of a good college is wonderfully efficacious in converting the raw, diffident, or morose boy into the frank, self-reliant, and sociable man. (2) The Fellowship System. Formerly every first-class man (and many in the second class) could count with certainty on his fellowship—that is, on a secure endowment (for a shorter or longer period) which would enable him to pursue his studies or to prepare himself for professional life. Some few of these fellowships are still open to competition; but the regulations of the Commission of 1877, which suppressed many fellowships to found professorships, coinciding with the loss of more than a third of the annual revenues of the colleges from the fall in agricultural rents, have seriously reduced their number and, so far, deprived Oxford of her best feature. The scholarship system—i.e. endowments held during the time of an undergraduate's course, is not so distinctive of Oxford; though such endowments are more numerous and valuable in Oxford than in any other university. (3) The System of Tuition. In foreign universities the work of tuition is undertaken by university teachers—i.e. by the professors. In Oxford the professoriate has withdrawn itself from any real share in this work, and, so far as concerns the mass of Oxford students, might be entirely suppressed without in any way affecting their studies. In all ordinary subjects, speaking generally, the professors have long ceased to give systematic instruction, and have at most expounded some small, and to the ordinary student often unnecessary, point in their subject. It is plain that from two lectures a week, delivered through at most three terms of seven weeks each, a student can learn little in language, in history, in philosophy, or in science. The work of tuition which in other universities is discharged by the professors is in Oxford discharged by the college lecturers. Formerly a college lecturer lectured only to the men of his own college, a system which was terribly unfair to the students of an inefficient college; of late years the better college lectures have become practically open to the whole university, and, especially in lectures connected with the honour schools, frequently without fee. The college lecturers of Oxford are therefore the professors of Oxford, except that they are not called by that name, and that they are paid by their college, not by the university. At the same time, the old Oxford tradition of a college tutor devoting himself to the interests of the men of his own college still continues. Apart from attendance at lectures, a large portion of Oxford tuition consists in taking compositions, translations, papers, and essays either individually or in very small classes to one's tutor or lecturer. This individual instruction involves, it is true, an expenditure of time and talent which seems out of all proportion to the results it achieves, yet the happiest memories of Oxford men are probably those half-hours or hours in their tutor's room when their individual faults were exposed by the large scholarship and their individual eccentricities corrected by the unsparing but good-natured claff of a kindly mentor. One result of the remarkable improvement in college tuition of the last few years has been the almost total disappearance of the 'private coach' from the honour work of the university. Private coaching continues to a great extent in the pass schools, partly because some candidates have been very badly taught at school and are below the level of their fellows, but chiefly because candidates are too idle to read by themselves. Quite a recent development of the professoriate deserves notice here. When the university has resident in it a man of special reputation in a given branch of study, the common university fund has of late years appointed him to lecture for three or five years in his own subject. In some cases undergraduate Oxford has not seconded this by attendance at these lectures, but the approval of maturer scholars has followed this public recognition of learning. Such lecturers are known by the new title of 'Readers.' (4) The Discipline. The discipline of Oxford is much stricter than that of any university outside England. Within college the government of the college deans, without college the vigilance of the proctors and their deputies, repress disorder and immorality. Sad as is the waste of young lives in Oxford, no one who has known a laxer discipline can refuse to recognise that if a man goes to the bad in Oxford he does it of his own wilful and obstinate choice. (5) At the same time, Oxford must be marked for the excessive luxury and idleness of its students. The common life of the colleges has this disadvantage, that it requires considerable force of character for a poor student to live in proportion to his poverty; there being every inducement for a man of weak character to live after the fashion of his richer and more careless contemporaries. Hence the son of a man of £400 a year often spends during his course at the rate of the son of £4000 a year, and begins his after-life under a heavy burden of debt. And lastly, amusements of different kinds, football, rowing, cricket, tennis, billiards, cardplaying, debating, the theatre, to say nothing of the baser kinds, such as betting, wines, worrying rats and rabbits, are thought of, talked of, and pursued by many undergraduates till barely an hour a day in the eight weeks of term is left for any serious or intellectual pursuit. For this devotion to amusements the public schools are largely responsible. (6) The Oxford course is entirely out of touch with the professional education of the country. The Oxford undergraduate, entering the university at nineteen or twenty, finds himself at twenty-three or twenty-four, after the expenditure of £800 or £1000, and the formation of idle habits and expensive tastes, with his whole life to begin afresh. If he wishes to enter the church he has generally to spend some years in a theological college; if he desires to go to the bar he must proceed to the Inns of Court; if he intends to practice medicine the long and expensive training of the London hospital schools has to be gone through.

Scholars and exhibitioners are admitted to a college without special matriculation examination; intending commoners are examined in some form or another by the college tutors. In some colleges it is enough to have passed Responsions, or equivalent examination; in others a further test is imposed; and some few colleges accept candidates in the hope that they will in the course of a term or two pass Responsions. But the practice of colleges varies so much from year to year that personal inquiry about the exact nature of the entrance examination is always advisable and generally necessary.

After admission there opens up a perplexing variety of courses which lead to the degree; but the general rule will be found to hold good, 'avoid any new-fangled course introduced by council, and proceed along the old beaten paths.' Under present arrangements the degree is reached by three examinations: (1) Responsions, familiarly termed 'Smalls.' This is a preliminary examination in the elements of Latin, Greek, and mathematics. It can be passed before coming into residence by means of various school examinations or by presenting one's self as a candidate for matriculation from a college. It ought always to be passed before matriculation, except in those cases where the instruction available is so bad that a pass is hopeless under it. (2) After Responsions the candidate has before him the examination which the statutes call the 'First Public Examination,' but men call Moderations ('Meds'), or an equivalent examination. Here it is necessary to decide whether a candidate shall (a) take an Honours examination in the middle of his course, (b) take a Pass examination at that point, or (c) take an examination which implies taking an Honours examination at the end of the course. The decision must be made according to the candidate's attainments, guided by the shrewd advice of his college tutor. In the first case (a) there are honours to be had in classics and mathematics (or in both, if the candidate read double) in the course of the second year; in the second case (b) a further examination in classics, with the addition of the elements of logic or some further mathematics has to be passed, and this ought to be done in the fourth term of residence; in the third case (c) there is what is called a 'preliminary examination' in law or in science giving admission to the final honour schools. All candidates, whether pass or honours, have at this stage to pass an examination in a small portion of Scripture, or an alternative examination provided for those who object to this examination in religion. (3) In the final examinations, officially termed the 'Second Public Examination,' but colloquially 'Greats,' the distinction between pass and honours is very marked. For the pass degree a candidate has to obtain a pass in three schools, of which one must be a language school (classics, French, or German), and the other two may be chosen from divinity, history (ancient or modern), political economy, law, or various branches of natural science. For the honours degree the candidate may choose one or more of the schools of—classics (officially termed 'Literæ Humaniore,' including not only the languages but the history and philosophy of Greece and Rome), mathematics, natural science, law, modern history, theology, oriental languages. Of these the most coveted distinction is the First in 'classical greats,' traditionally the chief Oxford school, for which most scholars and exhibitioners are required to read, and by examination in the subjects of which most of the few open or 'prize' fellowships are awarded.

The traditional 'double first'—i.e. a first-class in classics and mathematics, when there were no moderations and only these two final schools, such as was won by W. E. Gladstone in 1831 and by Dean Liddell in 1833—is now forgotten; and as many as three, four, or even five firsts are obtained without bringing the successful candidate much reputation in the university, or even a fellowship.

Candidates entering for an honour school and failing to get honours may be either 'ploughed'—i.e. rejected entirely—or 'gulfed'—i.e. allowed a stage in the pass degree. If a candidate in any school despairs of his chances, he can 'scratch'—i.e. remove his name from the list of candidates. In many of the schools, both pass and honours, there is a viva voce examination as well as a written examination. In the final honour schools candidates who have broken down in health may obtain an 'ægrotat' certificate allowing them to proceed to their degree. Four such certificates were allowed in 1890.

The following list, compiled from the honours lists of 1890, exhibits the distribution of candidates among the honour schools and between the four classes in each school:

A comparison of the above table with the list of professors, lecturers, and demonstrators yields the ridiculous result that to produce twenty-six candidates graduating in honours in science the university employs a staff of twenty-seven teachers, and that these require the assistance of several college lecturers.

The number of persons who graduated B.A. in the academic year 1889-90 was 597. The degree of M.A. is obtained by keeping the name on the books for three (or four) years from the date of B.A., by paying quarterly dues, and by paying graduation fees. The number of M.A.'s taken in 1889-90 was 421. The university of Oxford grants also the degrees of bachelor and doctor in divinity, law, medicine, and music. The exercises for degrees in divinity are merely formal, but the fees paid for these degrees are considerable. The bachelors' degrees in law, medicine, and music are awarded after examinations which have been brought up to the standard of those professions, but for the most part candidates study for them outside the university. The doctors' degrees in the same faculties are now awarded, as in other universities, on the production of approved theses. In the academical year 1889-90 the following persons graduated: In divinity, B.D. 13, D.D. 7; in law, B.C.L. 11, D.C.L. 2; in medicine, M.B. 9, M.D. 1; in music, B. Mus. 7, D. Mus. 1.

The university, on the initiative of the Hebdomadal Council, from time to time confers honoris causa the degrees of M.A., D.C.L., and D.D., the latter by custom being always voted to members of the university who have been raised to the episcopal bench. The number of these 'honorary degrees' in the academical year 1889-90 was as follows: Hon. M.A. 1; Hon. D.C.L. 7; Hon. D.D. 5.

All ordinary degrees require that candidates should have kept a specified number of terms by having their names on the books of some college or hall or of the non-collegiate students. For the degree of B.A. it is further required that the candidate should have resided in Oxford during twelve terms. In the academical year there are four terms—Michaelmas term (October to December), Hilary or Lent term (January to March), Easter and Trinity terms (the latter beginning the day after the former closes, April to July). The first two are kept by six weeks' residence, the last two by three weeks' residence in each, the legal requirements of residence being thus eighteen weeks in the year. The colleges, however, under ordinary circumstances, require an undergraduate to reside eight full weeks in each term (counting Easter and Trinity as one term)—i.e. twenty-four weeks in the year.

The number of undergraduates is now much too large to be accommodated within the walls of the colleges, and most colleges have undergraduates residing outside the college in lodgings in the town. They are still, however, strictly under the control of the university and the college. (1) No undergraduate is allowed to lodge in a house nor with a landlord who has not been licensed by the university, a provision which partially guards against unsanitary lodgings and overt scandalous conduct, but immensely increases the expense of lodgings; (2) if the undergraduate goes out or comes in after 10 P.M. the fact is supposed to be noted in the 'gate bill' which the landlord has to send weekly to the college. In October 1890 there were residing in lodgings 637 undergraduate members of the colleges and halls and 211 non-collegiate students.

Since 1868 there has been in Oxford a body of students not members of any college or hall, styled formerly 'unattached students,' but latterly 'non-collegiate students.' These reside in licensed lodgings; have a building provided by the university in which they attend lectures and meet their tutors; are under the disciplinary control of a censor, as the students of a college are under the control of their dean; and are supervised by a board of delegates, in the same way as the students of a college are by the head and fellows of their college. Under a statute of 1882 it is possible for a member of convocation to open a 'a private hall,' of which he is the 'licensed master,' for the reception of academical students. These private halls act chiefly as a limbo to which, in preference to leaving the university altogether, students who have been rejected by or ejected from the colleges betake themselves.

The number and disposition of the fellows and undergraduate members of the university in 1891 are shown in the following table:

In this table it must be noted that in the column of commoners none are reckoned who matriculated before 1886, and that to ascertain the number of commoners in actual residence about five per cent. must be struck off the numbers given. At Merton College the scholars are called 'postmasters,' at Magdalen College, 'demies.' At Christ Church the fellows are called 'students,' and until 1877 the scholars were called 'junior students.' Christ Church, being a cathedral as well as a college, has also an ecclesiastical foundation of six canons.

Oxford is fortunate in having been described from the points of view of its different interests in several attractive handbooks: Rev. C. W. Boase's Oxford City, in the 'Historic Towns' series (Longmans, 1887); Dr Brodrick's History of the University of Oxford, in the 'Epochs of Church History' series (Longmans, 1886); Rev. E. Marshall's Oxford Diocese, in the 'Diocesan His- tories' series (S.P.C.K. 1882); and The Colleges of Oxford: their History and Traditions, edited by A. Clark (Methuen, 1891). Messrs Parker's Handbook for Oxford is an admirable guide to the architectural features of the city; and in Andrew Lang's Oxford: Brief Historical and Descriptive Notes (1885; new ed. 1890) a charming presentation of Oxford is given both by writer and artists. A manual of the studies of the university is furnished by J. Wells in his Oxford and Oxford Life (Methuen). A full account of Oxford, civic, ecclesiastical, academic, collegiate, personal, up to the end of 17th century, will be found in the various works of the great Oxford antiquary, Anthony Wood, in the following editions—his History of the University and of the Colleges and Halls, by J. Gutch (1786-96); his Athenæ and Fasti, by Dr Bliss (1813-20); a new edition of these is in preparation; his City of Oxford, by A. Clark (1889 seqq.). From the time of Wood the formal annals of the university become of little interest and very little importance. The interest of books about Oxford rather lies in the diaries which give the day-to-day impressions of Oxford residents, Anthony Wood for the 17th century and Thomas Hearne for the 18th (best edition of both by the Oxford Historical Society), or in reminiscences of Oxford life in memoirs and autobiographies—e.g. in the autobiographies of Edmund Gibbon, R. L. Edgeworth, &c., and in Stanley's Life of Arnold. Part of the ground traversed by Wood has been gone over from the point of view of modern criticism by James Parker for the city (to the year 1100) in his Early History of Oxford (Oxf. Hist. Soc. 1888), and by H. C. Maxwell Lyte for the university (to the year 1530) in his History of the University of Oxford (1886). See also Reminiscences of Oxford by Oxford Men, edited by Miss Quiller-Couch (1891); S. F. Hulton, Rice Oxonienses (1892); Joseph Foster, Alumni Oxonienses 1500–1886 (1888–91), and his Oxford Men and their Colleges (1893); Wells, Oxford and Oxford Life (1893); Oxford as it is, by a mere Don (1894); Goldwin Smith, Oxford and her Colleges (1895); and The Colleges of Oxford, their History and Traditions, edited by the present writer (1891). Periodical publications are the Post-office Directory and Oxford Almanac; for the university, Oxford University Calendar, Student's Guide to the University, Regulations of the Boards of Studies, University Gazette; for the diocese, the Diocesan Calendar and Diocesan Gazette. The local press is vigorous, not to speak of the Oxford University Herald, the Oxford Review, and the Oxford Magazine.