of all the Professors; or, as the inscriptions more than once record, of all the philosophers who taught their theories in public. The College had no fear, it seems, of critical enquiry and free thought, though it may, perhaps, have overtasked the receptive powers of its students. One only of the great historic systems was ignored, perhaps as likely to be pushed too far by inexperienced minds to some extreme of dangerous licence, or rank impatience of control. No mention is ever made of the theories of Epicurus, which were judged, probably, unfit for the youths who were still in statu pupillari. The appetite for knowledge thus excited could be ill satisfied with a few months of lectures; but, though the discipline so far described lasted only for a year, there was nothing to prevent them from carrying on their interest in high thought. As students unattached they might linger for years round the same lecture-halls, busy themselves with the same unsolved problems, and in their turn hold conferences on great occasions, or aspire to fill some public Chair of Morals or Philology.

6

except the Epicurean.

very short,

The term, indeed, was far too short for such a The term of College multifarious training, which was at once gymnastic, life was martial, intellectual, and moral; but many even in those days were reluctant, it would seem, to postpone the active work of life in the interests of higher culture.

but the expenses considerable.

College dues.

Payment to College library.

As it is, the names of the old families figure most upon the registers; for there were other forms of outlay, besides the expenditure of valuable time, to deter the less opulent of the middle classes. We read nothing indeed of College dues, or of the sums paid for batells by the students; and more than once the authorities are praised in the inscriptions for lowering, if not remitting altogether, certain charges. It is possible that the expense was partly met by a grant of public money, or by some form of endowment; and the mention that recurs of the sacrifices in the memory of past benefactors seems to point to this conclusion, while it reminds us of the Bidding Prayer in which we hear the names of the pious founders of old time. But of the accounts, which were

to be audited each year in public by some officials of the State, it is most likely that the payments of the young men themselves formed an important item.

Nor did their expenses end with those for board or for tuition. Each must pay his quota to provide a hundred volumes yearly for the College library, which was stored, as we have seen, in a gymnasium. Their piety must be attested by liberal offerings to the Mother of the Gods and Dionysus, and sometimes, too, to other powers. Nor was it left to them to give at their free will; but a decree is quoted which defined the amount to be expended, somewhat

as a few years back at Oxford the Chapel offertory Offertory. was charged in College batells. Each generation left behind it year by year the pieces of gold and silver plate which, duly emblazoned doubtless with their names, were stored up-not in the College buttery, but in the treasury of some temple. Four costly goblets of the kind, we read in one inscription, were presented by the students of a single year.

monials.

The Rectors, too, who did their duty, must re- Testiceive some sort of testimonial, and have their bronze or marble statues presented to them by their grateful pupils, as men accept their pictures nowadays. It became at last a customary thing, to be mentioned in the record of each year; and therefore the honour was but trifling, though the cost was real, and the omission was a slight.

Then, again, there was the cost of their uniforms and arms, which must be of the gayest on parade, when they were playing at the soldiers' trade. The wealthier among the members, we are told, were encouraged by the authorities to show their public feeling in promoting common interests, and so, doubtless, spent their money freely to give éclat to their games or their processions. The office of Gymnasiarch Athletic especially is recorded as the privilege of men of means, who fostered the athletic sports; and if not

sports.

Sconces.

The final examinations.

ix. 1.

in that respect, at least in others, may remind us of the captain of a modern cricket club, or of a College eight.

Something, too, there is which reads as if there had been sconces or fines imposed by the members on each other, in support of social rules or codes of honour; but these were looked on with disfavour from above, as likely to cause jars in the harmony of friendly intercourse; and one rector, at least, put them down.

6

At length the year drew to its close, and with it. the restraints of discipline; but one ordeal still remained to try them. There is no new thing under the sun, and we find that there were examinations, even in old times, at Athens. Plutarch tells us by Symp. Qu. the way that the Mayor on one occasion came to the gymnasium to examine the Ephebi who studied literature and geometry, rhetoric and music.' The ceremony ended with a public dinner to which all the college tutors were invited as well as lecturers and men of learning, but the guests, we read, were not so orderly in their behaviour as might have been expected. At the end of Term the town council was expected to attend, and hear the posers do their work; or, as we should say in modern language, the student sat for examination in the Senate-house. There was, probably, no paper-work required, but only an oral

in the Senatehouse.

apposition; it may be even that the phrase chiefly refers to some manual exercises or parade, more than to tests of intellectual progress. For we do not Class-lists. hear of any class-lists; or rather those we have, and they are full enough, contain the names only of the prizemen in the races and athletic sports, and do not deal with the cultivation of the mind.

state

behaviour.

In any case they do not seem to have hurt them- Their healthy selves with their hard reading; the records insist upon the perfect health enjoyed by all the youths, as fully as if we had the extracts of a sanitary report. They and good were models, too, of good behaviour, those pattern students of old time, if we may trust the complimentary language of the marbles. They went to lectures steadily, and listened quietly to what was told them, and never ricted about the streets, or fell out in their cups like vulgar fellows in a drunken brawl, nor failed to do what their authorities enjoined, but 'were quite faultless all the long year through.'

We may naturally ask who were the guardians of a discipline so perfect as to seem more fitly lodged in some cloister of Utopia.

The Head of the College held the title of Cosmetes, or of rector, and was assisted or replaced at

times by a sub-rector; for so custom, though not law, required, since one at least declined to have a formal deputy, and preferred the assistance of his son.

с

The Cos

metes, or

Head of the
College.