As the stage of the University
approaches, the contrast becomes more express. The English lad
goes to Oxford or Cambridge; there, in an ideal world of gardens,
to lead a semi-scenic life, costumed, disciplined and drilled by
proctors. Nor is this to be regarded merely as a stage of
education; it is a piece of privilege besides, and a step that
separates him further from the bulk of his compatriots. At an
earlier age the Scottish lad begins his greatly different
experience of crowded class-rooms, of a gaunt quadrangle, of a bell
hourly booming over the traffic of the city to recall him from the
public-house where he has been lunching, or the streets where he
has been wandering fancy-free. His college life has little of
restraint, and nothing of necessary gentility. He will find no
quiet clique of the exclusive, studious and cultured; no rotten
borough of the arts. All classes rub shoulders on the greasy
benches. The raffish young gentleman in gloves must measure his
scholarship with the plain, clownish laddie from the parish school.
They separate, at the session's end, one to smoke cigars about a
watering-place, the other to resume the labours of the field beside
his peasant family. The first muster of a college class in
Scotland is a scene of curious and painful interest; so many lads,
fresh from the heather, hang round the stove in cloddish
embarrassment, ruffled by the presence of their smarter comrades,
and afraid of the sound of their own rustic voices.
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