But from the historic point of view, the most interesting part of the
picture is its right side, where stand the buildings of St. Edmund
Hall. This is the only survival of the system of residence in the
earliest University, of the Oxford which knew not the college system.
Before the days of "pious founders," the students had to provide
their own places of residence, and very early the custom grew up of
their living together in "halls," sometimes managed by a non-academic
owner, but often under the superintendence of some resident Master of
Arts, who was responsible, not for the teaching, but, at any rate in
part, for the discipline of the inmates of his hall. These halls had
at first no endowments and no permanent existence; they depended for
their continuity on the person of their head. Gradually they became
more organized; but when once the college system had been introduced,
it tended, by its superior wealth and efficiency, to render the
"halls" less and less important. They lost even the one element of
self-government which they had once had, the right of their members
to elect their own Principal; this right was usurped by the
Chancellor.
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