totally distinct in principle from the 12th Recommendation of the Commissioners, “that, during the latter part of their course, students should be left free to devote themselves to some special branch or branches of study”—which of course is neither more nor less than a postponement of classical literature, to what is popularly called “Useful Knowledge,” against which we should assuredly protest as strongly as any of the Oxford witnesses; three clear years of four terms each, all strictly kept, would save undergraduates some expense, much indecision and confusion as to when they shall go up, would be easier understood by the public generally, and would not involve the sacrifice of a single hour of classical training,—nay, in connection with one little improvement to be mentioned presently, might allow more time to be really devoted to it than at present. We are glad to recognise the “consent, though with great doubts of its expediency,”[9] to this view of one of the most real, because one of the most cautious and moderate reformers in the University. And we still entertain some confidence that it is a principle which must find its way into a well-digested scheme of collegiate reform, whenever we have one. Another measure which we had hoped to have seen suggested by the bill, important as it certainly is to the “good government” of Oxford—but on which we are sorry to find both the Oxford committees rigidly silent—is the shortening of the long vacation. On this subject, necessarily a distasteful one to college Tutors, we have already, in a previous article, spoken at some length, and nothing has been written or said to shake in the slightest degree our strong opinion of its desirability. In all the evidence which has been sought or volunteered by the Tutors, this point has been studiously, as it seems, avoided. Only Sir F. Rogers, (who is not a Tutor) follows us in pressing this, as he also confesses, “unpalatable suggestion.”[10] He sees in it, as we do, the simplest means of shortening the time of a general university education, without in the least impairing its efficiency. Exeter College also, in the abstract of proposed changes in its statutes, forwarded to the Home Office, Feb. 1, 1854, has set a solitary example of endeavouring to reclaim to collegiate study some portion of that pleasant but not very profitable four months during which Alma Mater usually turns her children out of doors: “It is proposed that a Tutor or Fellow reside during the greater part of the long vacation, to enable undergraduates to reside there for the purpose of study.” In these few lines we gladly hail one of those just and sensible reforms in which Exeter does not now for the first time take the lead,—which are overlooked because they are so simple in themselves, and so plainly within the reach of every college, but which, when once seen in action, cannot fail to be generally adopted.