As may well be imagined, students are not generally popular with the townsfolk, who resent the unequal treatment of the two classes, not because they wish for the same measure of license, but because anything like rowdiness contrasts strongly with their own habits; and extravagance, not an uncommon failing among students in Holland or elsewhere, is absolutely repugnant to the average Dutch citizen. This feeling of resentment seems to be growing, and has already had some slight effect upon the civil authorities; if the students find some day that they have lost their privileged position, they will have only themselves to thank, and certainly the change will do them no harm. But though a certain number go to the Universities merely to amuse themselves or to be in the fashion, most of them work well, even if they do not attend lectures regularly all through their course. In some faculties private coaching offers a quicker and easier way to 'promotion' than the more orthodox one through the class-rooms. No doubt there are some who are in no hurry to leave the attractions of student life, but not many cling to them so persistently as a certain Dutch student, to whom a relative bequeathed a liberal allowance, to be paid him as long as he was studying for his degree. He became known as 'the eternal student,' to the great wrath of the heirs who waited for the reversion of his legacy. For most men the ordinary course is long enough, for it averages perhaps six or seven years, though there is no fixed time, and candidates may take the examinations as soon as they please. The nominal course--that is, the time over which the lectures extend--varies in the different faculties, from four years in law to seven or eight in medicine, but very few men manage, or attempt, to take a degree in law in four years. The other faculties are theology, science, including mathematics, and literature and philosophy.