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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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he can pay ; the institutions have been too wisely framed to be counteracted , and titles and families are not regarded by the boys . The distinctions which they make are in the spirit of a barbarous , not of a commercial calculating
people ; bodily endowments bold the first , mental the second place . The best bruiser enjoys the highest reputation ; next to him , but after a long interval , comes the best cricket-player , the third place , at a still more respectful distance , is allowed to the cleverest ,
who in the opinion of his fellows alwavs takes place of the best scholar . In the world , —and the college is not out of it like the cloister , —all this is reversed into its right order ; but the gifts of fortune are placed above all .
Whatever habits and feelings of equality may have been generated at school , are to be got rid of at college , —and this is soon done . The first thing which the new student perceives on his arrival is , that his school -fellows
who are there before him pass him in the street as if they knew him not , and perhaps stare him full in the face , that he may be sure it is not done through inadvertency . The ceremony of
introduction must take place before two young men who for years have eaten at the same table , studied in the same class , and perhaps slept in the same chamber , —^ can possibly know each other when they meet at college .
There is to be found every where a great number of those persons whom we cannot prove to be human beings by any rational characteristic which they possess : but who must be
admitted to be so , by a sort of reductio ad absur&wm , because they cannot possibly be any thiug else . They p a ^ s for men , in the world , because it has pleased God for wise purposes , however inscrutable to us , to set them
upon two legs instead of four ; to give them smooth skins and no tail , and to enable them to speak without having their tongues slit . They are tike those weeds which will spring up and thrive in every soil and every climate , and which no favourable circumstances can
ever improve into utility . It is of little consequence whether they sfioot waterfowl , attend horse-races , frequent the brothel , and encourage the wine trade in one place or another ; but as a lew years of this kind ofhfe usually satisfy a man for the retat of it . it is convenient
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that there should be a place appointed where one of this description can pass through this course of studies out of sight of his relations , and without injuring his character ; and from whence he can come with the advantage of having been at the University , and a qualification which enables him to undertake the cure of souls . The
heretical bishops never inquire into the moral conduct of those upon whom they lay their unhallowed hands tand as for the quantity of learning which is required , M . Maillardet who exhibits his Androeides in London , could put enough into an automaton .
Such men as these enjoy more happiness , such as their happiness is , at the University than during any other part of their lives . It is a pleasant place also for the lilies of the world , they who hare neither to toil nor to spin ; but for those who have the world before them , there is perhaps
no place in their whole journey where they feel less at ease . It is the port from whence they are to embark , — and who can stand upon the beach and look upon the sea whereon he is about to trust himself and his fortunes , without feeling his heart sink at the uncertainty of the adventure > True it is that these reflections do not
continue long upon a young man ' s mind , yet they occur so often as insensibly to affect its whole feelings . The way of life is like the prospect from his window , —he beholds it not while be is employed , but in the intervals of employment , when he lifts up his eyes ,
the prospect is before him . The frequent change of his associates is another melancholy circumstance . A sort of periodical and premature mortality takes place among his friends : term after term they drop off to their
respective allotments , which are perhaps so distant from his own , that years may elapse , or the whole lease of life be run out , before he ever again meets with the man , whom habits of daily and intimate intercourse had endeared to him .
Let us now suppose the student to be successful in his collegiate pursuits , ho obtains a fellowship—and is , in the opinion of his friends , provided for for life . Settled for life he would indeed have been according to the original institution , and it still is a provision for him as long as he retains
Untitled Article
The Spaniards Letters from England . 4 OT
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1817, page 407, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2466/page/31/
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