THE OXFORD UNION.

I.

THE Union is an institution so admirable and so entirely successful at Oxford, that it seems strange that nothing of the kind has been attempted here.

It is, essentially, a city club, with such modifications as life at the University calls for; its active membership is consequently very large, - twelve hundred or more, - about one-half of the undergraduates; it is a club for the whole University, open to men who have just matriculated as well as to those who have been up for several years, and to former members who happen to be in Oxford; while strangers may be "put down" for a month by any undergraduate or graduate member.

The club-house is a comfortable, well-built brick building, situated in as central a position as possible with regard to the various colleges. In the main hall are bulletin-boards for various notices and announcements, one for the latest telegrams, a letter-rack for letters addressed to the club, and such conveniences. Opening out of this are the superintendent's office, the reading-room, where all the newspapers and magazines may be found, another reading-room, and the writing-room. Here are to be found all sorts of directories, post-office guides, c letters for abroad placed in the boxes in this room are stamped and posted by the club, while those placed in the box for the town are delivered once an hour, - a great convenience where distances are so great as between Christ Church and Keble, for instance. On a table at the end of the room is a "complaint-book," in which members may write any complaint or any suggestion for the management of the club, to which the president makes reply on the opposite page. Beyond the newspaper reading-room is the debating-hall, which was greatly enlarged last summer. A large number of the men who go to Oxford expect to enter public life, for which we have no counterpart in our "politics"; they come up Liberals or Conservatives by education, and the Union debates are, for the most part, on political questions, - live questions, in which all have some concern; hence the debates have an interest and excitement unknown with us. Upstairs is the library, which is now very large, and much more used by students than the University or College libraries, where there is much red-tape, while at the Union each member is his own librarian, and the system works well. Here also are the smoking-room, for cards, c the novel-room, where one finds all the latest novels, and comfortable seats in which to read them; and one or two other rooms.