The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

172 The Highland Monthly.
day of trial, at a long sitting, each candidate stood up and
propugned or impugned a portion of the Thesis ; all were
heard in turn ; and on the result, the degree was conferred."
Many of these Theses are preserved in the University
Library.
" Some of them are very long—a hundred pages
of close type. They are our best clue to the teaching of
the period." ^
Very interesting are the glimpses we obtain of the
domestic life of the students of two centuries ago. The
considerations that led the authorities to inoist upon every
student living in college are curious reading nowadays. I
quote them from an " Abstract of Some Statutes and
Orders," drawn up by a former Principal of King's College,
of which the only copy known to be extant is now in the
Library of Monymusk :— " As it hath been found by
experience that the late Practice of students lodging and
eating in private houses in different parts of the town, is
attended with many inconveniences ; they being by that
means less under the Eye and Authority of the Masters,
having less access to their assistance and that of their
fellow-students in the prosecution of their studies, being
exposed to many temptations from low or bad company,
being moreover for the most part badly accommodated
both in Lodging and Diet, and losing a considerable part
of their time in going and returning to their Lodgings,
which are often at a distance from College : therefore the
Masters have decreed that for the future all the students
shall lodge in Rooms within the College and eat at the
College Table during the whole Session."
There were three qualities of accommodation in the
college buildings. A room and a closet " of the best sort,
with a bedstead in each," might be rented for sixteen
shillings sterling per session ; a room and a closet of the
second sort for about twelve shillings ; while the rent of a
room with one bedstead was never allowed to exceed seven
^Professor Bain's Rectorial Address to the Students of Aberdeen University,
15th November, 1882, reprinted in his Practical Essays.