In the first decades of Canterbury College’s existence the major qualification offered was a general B.A., which students both in the sciences and in the humanities completed. By 1876, to pass the three year course, all students were compelled to study mathematics and Latin, as well as their choice of three other subjects. They were then required to sit both internal College examinations, and to be examined by the University of New Zealand. In 1880 the College offered tuition in classics, English literature, history, mathematics, chemistry, physics, geology, biology, and modern languages.
The first generation of students attending the College would have been impressed by the new grand buildings. One graduate looking back during the Jubilee in 1923 wrote “Oh the delirious joy of attending lectures … after years of work as an exempted student! The delight in the beautiful building, after the ugliness of a country school! The uplift of fellowship, though all the eager crowd were at first as strangers!” Sometimes it was not only the students who eagerly attended lectures.
