ABSTRACT
A traveller who visits Oxford or Cambridge is surprised and edified by the apparent order and tranquillity that prevails in the seats of the English muses … the use of arms is banished from our English universities; the uniform habit of the academics, the square cap and black gown, is adapted to the civil and even clerical professions; and from the doctor in divinity to the undergraduate, the degrees of learning and age are externally distinguished … The students of Oxford and Cambridge are united in colleges; the maintenance is provided at their own expense or that of the founders; and the stated hours of the hall and chapel represent the discipline of a regular and as it were religious community.
