Philosophy connected with them, require or admit especial mention. In these the impulse reached even the University Statutes, and introduced the germ of the system of mathematical examinations, which has since reached the highest pitch of mechanical perfection; and essentially contributed to gain for Cambridge its mathematical pre-eminence above all other institutions in the world. The name of Newton suffices to explain this preponderance of mathematics, yet we ought not to overlook the merit of his predecessor Barrow, and the earlier predisposition towards this branch of study. That Bentley was not able to elevate the classics to the same pitch, may be explained, both by the firm footing which Mathematics had already gained, and by his own unpleasantness and unpopularity. While Cambridge continued in this praiseworthy path, under Newton's energetic successors, and shortly produced Person to take the place of Bentley; Oxford also began to break the spell of its political evil spirit, and resume its classical studies. Thus in the second half of the eighteenth century we find both the Universities upon that level of scientific, moral, and religious cultivation, upon which they upon the whole remained till about thirty years ago, when a new impulse began, the riper and permanent results of which are yet to come.[1]
Dr. Christopher Wordsworth in his Social Life at the English Universities affords us more information as to the ages of the matriculants:
Swift went to Dublin at fourteen. Gibbon entered at Magdalen, Oxford, as a gentleman commoner (April, 1752) before he had completed his fifteenth year. And, that entries at that early age were contemplated as possible, is evident from the fact that there was a regulation at Oxford, which provided that students who entered at an earlier age should not subscribe the XXXIX Articles on their matriculation, but should wait till they had completed their fifteenth year. Out of a dozen cases taken at random, of men who studied at the Universities in the last century (not including Gibbon) I find three who entered at fifteen years of age, two at seventeen, three at eighteen, and four at nineteen.[2]
The ages of the early graduates at the Philadelphia College show that they entered college life at earlier years than Dr. Wordsworth quotes of the ages at matriculation, at the English Universities. Of the seventy graduates at the sixteen commencements, prior to the abrogation of the Charter in 1 779, whose ages are known to us, thirty-seven were not over nineteen years
