Examinations are periodically held, at which he may appear or not, as he chooses.
The University is a great unsympathetic machine, taking in a stream of raw-boned cartilaginous youths at one end, and turning them out at the other as learned divines, astute lawyers, and skilful medical men.
Of every thousand of the raw material about six hundred emerge at the other side.

The remainder are broken in the process.
The merits and faults of this Scotch system are alike evident.
Left entirely to his own devices in a far from moral city, many a lad falls at the very starting-point of his life's race, never to rise again.

Many become idlers or take to drink, while others, after wasting time and money which they could ill afford, leave the college with nothing learned save vice.

On the other hand, those whose manliness and good sense keep them straight have gone through a training which lasts them for life.

They have been tried, and have not been found wanting.
They have learned self-reliance, confidence, and, in a word, have become men of the world while their _confreres_ in England are still magnified schoolboys.
High up in a third flat in Howe Street one, Thomas Dimsdale, was going through his period of probation in a little bedroom and a large sitting-room, which latter, "more studentium," served the purpose of dining-room, parlour, and study.