The Oxford Student.

The daily routine of the Oxford undergraduates is not calculated to produce exhaustion from overwork, although the hard working student of course can easily and enough to occupy all the time in an institution which possesses such opportunities for learning as does Oxford. All the lectures are given in the morning, and the afternoon and evening are free to the student. It is seen from this that the amount of time devoted absolutely to work is not very large, and as the length of each term is eight weeks and vacation, all told, amounts to six months, each year, a course at Oxford need not be a very severe "grind" to a man rather inclined to take things easy. There is one restriction, however, put upon the freedom of the students, which perhaps may seem strange and amusing to the students of Harvard, where every student is almost completely his own master.

No Oxford student is allowed to enter or leave the university after nine o'clock. The gates are shut at that time, but the payment of a fine graded according to the gravity of the offence will admit the tardy student even after this late hour. This regulation and one forbidding students to walk up the river in the morning, and another for bidding students to walk on "The High" in study hours, without cap and gown are relics of the old system of police regulations which used to exist in all colleges and universities in olden times. These last two regulations are what we might call dead letters on the Oxford statue book; no observance is paid them. They are good examples of a certain class of petty rules and regulations in existence, but never enforced at Oxford.

One point wherein the Oxford student has the advantage, or disadvantage as the reader may think, over the American college student, is the regulation that no one shall pursue separate courses of study until he has been at the university a year. No matter what his knowledge may be every man is obliged to wait a year before trying to pass his "Moderations," as they are called; then if successful, he is allowed to study "The Finals," or elective courses. Thus taking a three year's course instead of one of four years, is scarcely feasible or practicable.