In such a state of society colleges offered not only a tranquil retreat to adult scholars, but also a safe and well-regulated home to younger students attending courses of lectures in the schools. The early founders, it is true, did not design them to be mainly educational seminaries for the general youth of the country, and probably expected their inmates to obtain much of their instruction outside the walls of the college. But the statutes of Merton prove conclusively that ‘Scholars’[3] on admission were supposed to be of about the same age as modern freshmen, and to need rudimentary teaching, while express provision was made for the reception of mere schoolboys. Doubtless, for at least two centuries after the institution of colleges, their members were greatly outnumbered by those of halls, and the system which in the fifteenth century triumphed over the rivalry of private hostels may be more properly called aularian than collegiate. Nevertheless, the superiority of colleges as boarding-houses for students inevitably made itself felt from the very first. Humble as their buildings and domestic arrangements may originally have been, they were imposing and luxurious by contrast with those of lodging-houses or halls. Their endowments enabled them to maintain a standard of decency and comfort in itself conducive to study; their statutes ensured regularity of discipline; their corporate privileges and rights of self-government imparted a dignity and security to all connected with them; the example and authority of their elder fellows, mostly engaged in scholastic or scientific research, if not in vigorous lecturing, cannot have been wholly lost upon the juniors. In Merton, and probably in other colleges, disputations were carried on as in the University schools; attendance at Divine service was a statutable obligation; students were not allowed to go about the streets unless accompanied by a Master of Arts; in the dormitories the seniors were invested with a kind of monitorial authority over the rest; and misconduct was punishable with expulsion. By degrees, some of the halls came into the possession and under the control of colleges, which might naturally elect the most promising of their inmates to scholarships. No wonder that, however weak numerically, the seven colleges founded before the end of the fourteenth century produced an immense proportion of the men who adorned that age by their learning and virtues.[4] Thus, out of eighteen vice-chancellors who can be identified as having filled that office in the fourteenth century, five at least were members of Merton College, two of Oriel, and one of Queen’s. Of sixty-four proctors known to have been elected during the same century, twenty-two at least were members of Merton, eight of Oriel, four of Balliol, and one of University, Exeter, Queen’s, and New College respectively, while it is probable that others, of whom nothing definite is known,