An American at Oxford

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Excerpt: ...fail of full sympathy. In America there is but one hole of exit, though men differ in their proportions as they go out through it. In England there are passmen and classmen. To say that the passman is the kitten would not be altogether precise. He is rather a distinct species of undergraduate. More than that, he is the historic species, tracing his origin quite without break to the primal undergraduate of the Middle Ages. He is a tradition from the time when the fund of liberal knowledge was so small that the university undertook to serve it all up in a pint-pot to whoever might apply. The pint-pot still exists at Oxford; and though the increasing knowledge of nine centuries long ago overflowed its brim, the passman still holds it forth trustfully to his tutor. The tutor patiently mingles in it an elixir compounded of as many educational simples as possible, and then the passman presents it to the examiners, who smile and dub him Bachelor 161 of Arts. After three years, if he is alive and pays the sum of twelve pounds, they dub him Master. The system for granting the pass degree is, in its broader outlines, the same as for all degrees. In the first examination-that for matriculation-it is identical for passmen and classmen. This examination is called "responsions," and is, like its name, of mediæval origin. It is the equivalent of the American entrance examination; but by one of the many paradoxes of Oxford life it was for centuries required to be taken after the pupil had been admitted into residence in one of the colleges. In the early Middle Ages the lack of preparatory schools made it necessary first to catch your undergraduate. It was not until the nineteenth century that a man could take an equivalent test before coming up, for example at a public school; but it is now fast becoming the rule to do so; and it is probable that all colleges will soon require an entrance examination. In this way two or three terms more of a student's...