Cambridge (England) -- Pictorial works; University of Cambridge -- Pictorial works
University discipline is in the hands of the vice-chancellor and his
court,[346] and the proctors. College discipline in those of the
dean[347] and tutors. Two proctors perambulate the town every night,
each accompanied by two servants known to the undergraduate as the
proctor’s “bull-dogs.” They take the name of any offending student and
bring him up next morning if necessary before the vice-chancellor. They
can also send men back to their college or rooms, enter lodgings, and
exact fines. When the youth of 19 or 20 leaves the higher forms of a
public school and comes to the university, he is treated as a man, and
leads a man’s life guided by himself. But he becomes also a member of a
great society, existing for certain purposes. If he is a man, he is a
very young one; and if he guides his own life he has only just begun to
do so. He lives in his own house--for his college room, like the
Englishman’s dwelling, is his castle--but he must be at home by 10 p.m.
This is the first point of discipline. The gates of colleges and the
outer doors of lodgings are shut at 10, and any one who presents himself
after that hour, without his tutor’s permission, has his name taken by
the college porter, or by the lodging proprietor who acts _in loco
janitoris_. He must also dine in hall, if not every day at least five
times in the week, which must include Sunday. The third restriction on
his liberty is (or at least was originally) a care for his soul. The
obligation to attend chapel so many times a week resolves itself now
into two attendances in the week and generally two on Sunday. No means
of enforcing this are however taken nowadays, and the men are generally
left free to judge for themselves in this respect, though ‘moral
suasion’ is exercised by the deans except in the case of nonconformists
and conscientious objectors. Fifty years ago 8 “chapels” were expected;
but if a pensioner kept 6 and a fellow-commoner 4, he was left
untroubled by his dean. In New England at the same epoch no less than 16
attendances at chapel every week were required, seven at unseasonable
hours; a burden which was tolerated with more cheerfulness by the New
Englander than were the 8 “chapels” by his Cambridge contemporary.
[Sidenote: Town licences. Expulsion “rustication”. “gating.”]
The licensing of all lodgings and places of entertainment[348] to which
undergraduates may go, is the hold which the university has over the
town. Its sanctions for the undergraduate are fines and expulsion;
breaches of
[Illustration: TRINITY BRIDGE, KING’S COLLEGE CHAPEL IN THE DISTANCE
This is one of the many charming views on the Cam at “the Backs” of the
Colleges.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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