, which
applies to our immediate subject, is the more than regal provision for
the lodging and accommodation of the students by the system of
_Colleges_. Of these there are in Oxford, neglecting the technical
subdivision of _Halls_, five-and-twenty; and the main use of all, both
colleges and halls, is, not as in Scotland and on the Continent, to
lodge the head of the University with suitable dignity, and to provide
rooms for the library and public business of the University. These
purposes are met by a separate provision, distinct from the colleges;
and the colleges are applied as follows: 1st, and mainly to the
reception of the Fellows, and of the Undergraduate Students; 2ndly, to
the accommodation of the head (known in different colleges by the
several designations of provost, principal, dean, rector, warden,
&c.); 3rdly to the accommodation of the private library attached to
that college, and to the chapel, which is used at least twice every
day for public prayers; 4thly, to the Hall, and the whole
establishment of kitchen, wine vaults, buttery, &c., &c., which may be
supposed necessary for the liberal accommodation, at the public meals
of dinner [and in some colleges supper] of gentlemen and visitors from
the country, or from the Continent; varying (we will suppose) from 25
to 500 heads. Everywhere else the great mass of the students are
lodged in obscure nooks and corners, which may or may not be
respectable, but are at all events withdrawn from the _surveillance_
of the University. I shall state both the ground and the effect (or
tendency rather) of this difference. Out of England, universities are
not meant exclusively for professional men; the sons of great
landholders, and a large proportion of the sons of noblemen, either go
through the same academic course as others--or a shorter course
adapted to their particular circumstances. In England, again, the
church is supplied from the rank of gentry--not exclusively, it is
true, but in a much larger proportion than anywhere else, except in
Ireland. The corresponding ranks in Scotland, from their old
connection with France, have adopted (I believe) much more of the
Continental plan for disposing of their sons at this period. At any
rate, it will not be contended by any man, that Scotland throws
anything like the same proportion with England, of her gentry and her
peerage into her universities. Hence, a higher standard of manners and
of habits presides at Oxford and