ich he may attend if he choose. If not, he may stay away
without the slightest remonstrance from the college. As to religion, he
may worship the sun, or have a private fetish of his own upon the
mantelpiece of his lodgings for all that the University cares. He may
live where he likes, he may keep what hours he chooses, and he is at
liberty to break every commandment in the decalogue as long as he
behaves himself with some approach to decency within the academical
precincts. In every way he is absolutely his own master. Examinations
are periodically held, at which he may appear or not, as he chooses.
The University is a great unsympathetic machine, taking in a stream of
raw-boned cartilaginous youths at one end, and turning them out at the
other as learned divines, astute lawyers, and skilful medical men.
Of every thousand of the raw material about six hundred emerge at the
other side. The remainder are broken in the process.

The merits and faults of this Scotch system are alike evident.
Left entirely to his own devices in a far from moral city, many a lad
falls at the very starting-point of his life's race, never to rise
again. Many become idlers or take to drink, while others, after wasting
time and money which they could ill afford, leave the college with
nothing learned save vice. On the other hand, those whose manliness and
good sense keep them straight have gone through a training which lasts
them for life. They have been tried, and have not been found wanting.
They have learned self-reliance, confidence, and, in a word, have become
men of the world while their _confreres_ in England are still magnified
schoolboys.

High up in a third flat in Howe Street one, Thomas Dimsdale, was going
through his period of probation in a little bedroom and a large
sitting-room, which latter, "more studentium," served the purpose of
dining-room, parlour, and study. A dingy sideboard, with four still
more dingy chairs and an archaeological sofa, made up the whole of the
furniture, with the exception of a circular mahogany centre-table,
littered with note-books and papers. Above the mantelpiece was a
fly-blown mirror with innumerable cards and notices projecting in a
fringe all around, and a pair of pipe racks flanking it on either side.
Along the centre of the side-board, arranged with suspicious neatness,
as though seldom disturbed, stood a line of solemn books, Holden's
_Osteology_, Quain's _Anatomy_, Kirkes' _Physiol