V - PRE-REFORMATION COLLEGE LIFE

Summary

What I propose to do to-night is to give you some account of College life as it was 400 years ago. I fear, however, that there is not very much to be said on this subject. We are looking down a long cavernous passage, where the light is feeble, and the outlines soon become dim and uncertain. But the subject ought to be one of some interest to you of the present day, for the men of whom I shall speak are your predecessors, bound to you by a chain in which, however long, no single link is missing. That is a rather startling fact when we come to reflect upon it. Every one of you is in intimate personal relation with some of those who belong to the year before you. So were they with those who preceded them. And thus we may go back step by step, to the very origin of the Foundation. Fortunately for our country there has been no breach of continuity by war, nor even by plague. Till quite recent times I doubt if there was ever a single day, from year's end to year's end, in which some fellows and scholars were not in residence, and therefore in personal communication.

To begin. There is one natural prejudice which you have to overcome. Those who are familiar with the social prestige and intellectual claims of any one of our more important colleges in the present day, may find it difficult to realize what relatively humble institutions they were 400 years ago.