The life and letters of Benjamin Jowett, M. A., master of Balliol college, Oxford.

1840-1846] Archdeacon Palmer's Reminiscences I03

Yet no preference was given by the statutes, nor any favour
shown by the electors, to public school men. The emoluments
of a Balliol Scholarship were reckoned in those days at ~3o
a year or thereabouts. Scholars were exempt from tuition
fees, and had an allowance for maintenance of Ios. a week
during actual residence. The competition, however, for these
Scholarships was at least as great as for Scholarships at any
other College in the University, although at some Colleges
(such as Trinity, for example) the emoluments were much
more considerable. The Snell Exhibitioners, then as now,
formed an important element in the College. There were
ten of these Exhibitions, and there were usually five or six
undergraduates holding them in residence. I may mention
among my own contemporaries, John Campbell Shairp, afterwards Professor of Poetry; H. A. Douglas, afterwards Bishop
of Bombay; William Young Sellar, afterwards Professor of
Humanity at Edinburgh; Francis Sandford, and Patrick Cumin,
who filled successively the post of Secretary to the Committee
of Council on Education. Many or most of the Commoners
were public school men; Eton in particular was largely represented. Not a few were reading men, whose pursuits and
ambitions were similar to those of the Scholars and Exhibitioners. In consequence, the Scholars and Exhibitioners did
not form a distinct set, although the Scholars had a table to
themselves in Hall. There was a fast set (as we called it),
which consisted of ten or a dozen men, whose amusements
were more expensive than those of the rest; but there was
no hard line of demarcation even here, some of the reading
men were more or less intimate with the members of the
fast set. There were also a few men who, for one reason or
another, did not mix much with their neighbours. So far,
however, as I remember, the bulk of the College, some forty men
at least, Scholars, Commoners, and Exhibitioners, associated
freely together. Breakfast-parties and wine-parties, small or
great, at which we all met (though seldom all at once), went
on every day. It is my impression that I myself rarely
breakfasted alone, and rarely failed to pass an hour or more
after dinner in company. But our breakfast-parties broke
up at ten, and the amount of wine drunk at our wine-parties