"Well, first and foremost it's an awfully idle place; at any rate
for us freshmen. Fancy now. I am in twelve lectures a week of an
hour each--Greek Testament, first book of Herodotus, second
AEneid, and first book of Euclid! There's a treat! Two hours a
day; all over by twelve, or one at latest, and no extra work at
all, in the shape of copies of verses, themes, or other
exercises.
"I think sometimes I'm back in the lower fifth; for we don't get
through more than we used to do there; and if you were to hear
the men construe, it would make your hair stand on end. Where on
earth can they have come from? Unless they blunder on purpose, as
I often think. Of course, I never look at a lecture before I go
in, I know it all nearly by heart, so it would be sheer waste of
time. I hope I shall take to reading something or other by
myself; but you know I never was much of a hand at sapping, and,
for the present, the light work suits me well enough, for there's
plenty to see and learn about in this place.
"We keep very gentlemanly hours. Chapel every morning at eight,
and evening at seven. You must attend once a day, and twice on
Sundays--at least, that's the rule of our college--and be in
gates by twelve o'clock at night. Besides which, if you're a
decently steady fellow, you ought to dine in hall perhaps four
days a week. Hall is at five o'clock. And now you have the sum
total. All the rest of your time you may just do what you like
with.
"So much for our work and hours. Now for the place. Well, it's a
grand old place, certainly; and I dare say, if a fellow goes
straight in it, and gets creditably through his three years, he
may end by loving it as much as we do the old school-house and
quadrangle at Rugby. Our college is a fair specimen: a venerable
old front of crumbling stone fronting the street, into which two
or three other colleges look also. Over the gateway is a large
room, where the college examinations go on, when there are any;
and, as you enter, you pass the porters lodge, where resides our
janitor, a bustling little man, with a pot belly, whose business
it is to put down the time at which the men come in at night, and
to keep all discommonsed tradesmen, stray dogs, and bad
characters generally, out of the college.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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