matteucci's

Updated: April 30, 2025

He says "the examination for the degree of bachelor of arts, which we place at the end of our three years' university course, is merely the Abiturienten-examen of Germany, the épreuve du baccalauréat of France, placed in both those countries at the entrance to university studies"; and it is by this that he justifies Signer Matteucci's absurd description of Oxford and Cambridge as hauts lyceés Now, in the first place, there is not one single word in this sentence, or in the context, or, so far as I remember, in the whole book, about the Honours system, which for very many years before 1868 had exalted the standard infinitely higher in the case of a very large proportion of men.

George Saintsbury - Matthew Arnold