Oxford [June 1835]

In Oxford, it means an exercise performed orally by the students, occasionally assisted by the tutor, and subject, in its whole course, to his corrections, and what may be called his scholia8. An Oxford lecture imposes a real bona fide11 task upon the student; it will not suffer him to fall asleep, either literally or in the energies of his understanding; it is a real drill, under the excitement, perhaps, of personal competition, and under the review of a superior scholar. The most important of the Scottish Professorships—those which are fundamentally morticed8 to the moral institutions of the land—are upon the footing of Oxford tutorships, as regards emoluments: that is, they are not suffered to keep up a precarious mendicant existence, upon the alms of the students, or upon their fickle admirations.