Book Description

Excerpt from Five Years in an English University I write this book for three reasons: First, very little is accurately known in this country about the English Universities. Secondly, most of what we hear respecting those institutions, comes through the medium of popular novels and other light literature, frequently written by non-University men, and almost always conveying an erroneous and unfavorable idea of the Universities. Thirdly and principally, there are points in an English education which may be studied with profit, and from which we may draw valuable hints. Few Americans have the opportunity of growing up into manhood among half a generation of the most highly educated class in England; nor is it indeed altogether desirable that many should have. I myself owed it to an accident. There are few persons among us qualified by their knowledge of the subject to do it justice. Had I ever seen even a decent review article on English University education, this book would not have been written. It has been my object to give a picture of English University life just as it is; to do which correctly, I have been obliged to mingle gaieties and gravities. Should the reader not assent to my conclusions, he will at any rate have a tolerable idea of the facts. The same motive - a desire to depict accurately what I saw and experienced, and the impressions which such a life makes on an American - has obliged me to speak of myself more frequently than is altogether pleasant for either reader or author. Of the bad arrangement and want of system displayed in the book, I am as conscious as the severest critic can be. These faults must be attributed to want of ability, not want of care. To deal with the minutiae of a system so complicated as that of several independent Colleges combined in one University - rejecting what is unimportant, and lucidly setting forth what is worthy of remark - becomes an extremely difficult task where everything is so different from the corresponding arrangements among ourselves. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."