- pany it. "Tenui musam meditamur avenâ," the Scottish student may
say with Jeffrey and Sydney Smith. But if it is possible to cultivate letters on a little oatmeal, it is not possible to cultivate society on such attenuated resources. Society, even when it is laid out on the most thrifty principles, costs a good deal more than some men can afford. How would it be possible for the poor fellow who hopes to get through his terms for 30l. a year to dine at the same table with the student who could afford four or five times the sum? The college year generally consists of about five months, and I have known men cover all the expenses of this period with 22l. It is true that this was in St. Andrew's, where a hundred fresh herrings used to go for sixpence, and a splendid dinner of fish might be purchased for a penny; but if it is remembered that the sum I have mentioned covered the fees for the various classes, amounting to about 10l., and that it was upon the balance of 12l. that the student continued to subsist for these dreary five months, the feat will appear sufficiently marvellous. It is the students who live in this sort of way that are the most interesting characters in the Scottish universities, and it is their necessities that have gone to extinguish the student life. This will be evident if we consider their position a little minutely.
I suppose that fully one-third of the Scottish students are steeped in poverty. The struggle of some of these men upwards, in the face of terrific odds, is almost sublime. When we look at the struggle in cold blood, we say that it is a mistake, that these men ought never to have dreamt of the university, that theirs is a false ambition, and that it would have been better if they had never left the plough or the smithy, if they had gone into the grocery line, or had taken kindly to confectionery. But has not every form of ambition its weak side?—and are we to stop sympathizing in a man's honest endeavours when we discover that he might be doing much better in a different fashion? Are we not to admire the man wrestling with the waves, because he has no business to be in the water? One of the 22-pounders I have mentioned was a very humble individual; but he fought like a hero, and his life was a constant marvel. He was so poor, indeed, that before one came near the question—How on earth does this man keep soul and body together, besides paying his college fees, with so small a sum?—the previous question presented itself as even more difficult—Where did he get his 22l.? He had been a carpenter; he had curtailed his hours in order to devote them to study; he got the cast-off clothes of the parish minister, and somebody else made him the present of an old gown, St. Andrew's delighting in red gowns. At the commencement of his first session, several small exhibitions, or, as they are called, bursaries, the value of each being only 10l., were to be competed for, and he had the skill to obtain one. It was a little fortune to him—an annuity of 10l. for four years to come. When he saw his name on the list of winners, he made such queer faces to conceal his emotions that all eyes were turned upon him, and it was ever afterwards a joke against him. For the remaining 12l. he managed in this
