Some critics complain that men waste their time in Oxford. So they do, _some of them_—and so they do elsewhere. It is all a matter of manner and degree, and a question of what constitutes waste. One might do almost no work in Oxford and yet do just the opposite of wasting his time—if he use his eyes and ears. There is that about Oxford which breathes of History, which exhales Romance, which is redolent of culture, which fills the very atmosphere with the spirit of hospitality. One need only walk through the College ‘quads’ and cloisters, follow the windings of the ‘finest architectural street in Europe’, ‘the High,’ wander through meadow and park, along the banks of Isis and Cherwell, through Addison’s Walk, through ‘Mesopotamia’, or out on the hills where Shelley delighted to pass long afternoons, or off to the north where Gladstone walked alone; one must, if he have any capacity, get something of a liberal education; he cannot fail of inspiration. One may go to lectures on Literature and History, and, without ever taking a note, carry away impressions of what _has been_ and what _is_ and what _is going to be_ in the world, especially in the English world, and in life and thought both ancient and modern. It is impossible to tell some one else just what Oxford _is_—but Oxford _as it MAY BE_ is a question with which every Oxford man has to deal for himself. Oxford is a home of ‘influences’; it is all too frequently referred to as the ‘home of lost causes’; what it becomes for each man who trusts himself or is entrusted to its ‘influence’, depends largely upon himself. The University offers each man wide fields for the investment of his time and talent—it offers much for one to learn—but it does not do much choosing for one, nor does it set itself as a task-master. It is often hard to take Oxford seriously. Examinations seem a far-away, hazy something, too often forgotten, as each day unrolls a tempting programme of delights other than books. Unlimited credit causes many an unthinking undergraduate to step deep into debt before he stops to reflect that tradesmen _do_ keep accounts. The freedom of a life where every man is expected to think and act for himself offers every opportunity for self-improvement or self-destruction. But there is always a day of reckoning. Sooner or later examinations stare one in the face and bills roll in from every side. The student has kept his Terms and Oxford has offered him what he has chosen to take. The man who has reckoned well with his time and his money will take something far more valuable than his degree from Oxford. The man who has looked upon his ’Varsity years as a mere summer of pleasure has also gotten much out of his ‘College course’, but in its last days he may find much cause to quote from the ‘grasshopper and the ant’. The _University Calendar_ for 1906-7 shows a total of 3,663 undergraduates at present enrolled.[48]