Young People and the Law

Age 13 – may be employed part time.

Age 14 – allowed in bars but not to drink alcohol.

Age 15 – legally a “young person” and not a “child”.

Age 16 – school leaving age, can leave home, drive a moped, marry with parents consent (not needed in Scotland), buy beer with a meal.

Age 17 – can drive a car or motorbike.

Age 18 – age of majority – can vote, get married without parents’ consent, own property, get tattoed, drink in pubs…

Talking Point:

People say that children today grow up more quickly. The law sometimes makes this possible. Look at the information – how is the law different in our country?

Cities

Great Britain is not really very big country. The Capital of it is London. But there are many old and wonderful cities and we would like to tell you about some of them.

Cambridge

Cambridge must be one of the best-known towns in the world, and can be found on most tourists’ lists of places to visit. The principal reason for its fame is its University, which started during the 13-th century and grew steadily, until today there are more than twenty colleges.

Most of them allow visitors to enter the grounds and courtyards. The most popular place from which to view them is from the Backs, where the college grounds go down to the River Cam.

The oldest college is Peterhouse, which was founded in 1284, and the most recent is Robinson College, which was opened in 1977. The most famous is probably King’s, because of its magnificent chapel. Its choir of boys and undergraduates is also very well known.

The University was exclusively for men until 1871 when the first women’s college was opened. Another was opened two years later and a third in 1954. In the 1970-s, most colleges opened their doors to both men and women. Almost all colleges are now mixed, but it will be many years before there are equal numbers of both sexes.

Oxford

“This Oxford, I have no doubt

is the finest City in he world!”

John Keats

A few miles beyond the small old town of Abington are the spires of the most mythicized of cities: the spire of Christ Cathedral, the Tom Tower and Magdalen Tower. This is Oxford, the city that has given its name to many things from marmalade to movements, the city where undergraduates, cycling around corners, trail their gowns in the wind. Oxford is also the site of the first Morris Motors works. Since World War Two Oxford has been an industrial city as much as an academic one.

Crammed into a tiny space less than a mile square is one of the greatest collections of buildings to be seen anywhere. Moreover these building have been home to an extraordinary number of statesmen, kings and saints. Over eight centuries Oxford University has educated philosophers, poets, and scientists. We can name such famous people as Thomas Bodley, the founder of the famous Bodlein library, then Christopher Wren who was the University Professor of Astronomy by the age of 29, but became the greatest of all English architects.

Yet it is impossible to see the University. It is an organization with separate institutions called colleges which work together to educate all their members. Most of the city’s buildings belong to the colleges, each with a few hundred students who take degrees from the University, and a few dozen teachers. The teachers also run the university. The magical power of Oxford is the mix of magnificent architecture with these people and their way of life.

Oxford University is one of the oldest in the world. By 1216 it had over 1000 masters and scholars. A typical Oxford University student at this time started his studies aged sixteen. His course lasted seven years and only men could take the course. He went to lectures in grammar, logic and rhetoric – to learn how to think and express himself clearly – arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music and three branches of philosophy. After the full seven years he was examined for a Master’s degree.

Students faced a serious accommodation problem. The townspeople felt swamped by the University. There was constant bad feeling between town and university which boiled up into a terrible massacre on St. Scholasticas Day in 1355. An argument in a tavern spilled onto the streets. Many people were killed, halls were smashed and chaplains¹ were scalped. The town suffered for centuries as a punishment for its part in the riot. The king forced the mayor² and bailiffs³ to attend a humiliating ceremony every St. Scholastice’s Day for 480 years, at which they swore

to observe the university’s privileges. So the University dominated the town until reforms in the early 19-th century.

Oxford’s long history has given rise to many old traditions, customs and ceremonies. The grandest public ceremony is Encaenia in which Oxford gives honorary degrees to eminent people from all over the world. The Chancellor and the people being honored pass through the streets of Oxford in procession every July.

Possibly the most famous of all Oxford ceremonies is the May Morning celebration in which Magdalen’s choir welcomes spring with a hymn sung from the top of the college tower. About 15,000 people gather at Magdalen Bridge at 6 a.m. every first day of May though 500 years ago it used to be 4 a.m.