During their first two years all undergraduates, unless properly excused, must take a prescribed amount of physical exercise.
He continued the practice, which he had commenced in 1848, of taking with him a small party of undergraduates in vacation time, and working with them in one of his favourite haunts, at Askrigg in Wensleydale, or Tummel Bridge, or later at WestMalvern.
Lovering is first mentioned as master in 1619, so that Taylor probably spent seven years at the school before he was entered at Gonville and Caius College as a sizar in 1626, 1 eighteen months after Milton had entered Christ's, and while George Herbert was public orator and Edmund Waller and Thomas Fuller were undergraduates of the university.
His main reading was still history, but he went through all the Latin and Greek authors commonly read in the schools and universities, besides several that are not commonly read by undergraduates.
As viceprincipal of the theological college at Cuddesdon (1854-1859) he wielded considerable influence, and, on returning to Oxford as vice-principal of St Edmund's Hall, became a growing force among the undergraduates, exercising his influence in strong opposition to the liberal reaction against Tractarianism, which had set in after Newman's secession in 1845.
