THE UNIVERSITY AS A DEGREE-GIVING BODY
[pp. 157-164] Meaning of a degree--the kinds of degrees--the
bachelor--the ancient exercises of the schools called acts,
opponencies, and responsions--the
sophister--questionist--determiner--master--regent master--the
degree of _M.A._--introduction of written examinations--the tripos.
[pp. 164-189] The subjects of study and examination: the _trivium_
and _quadrivium_--grammar--Aristotle’s logic--rhetoric--the three
learned faculties--the doctorate--development in university
studies--the development of the mathematical tripos--the senior
wrangler--the classical tripos--Greek at Cambridge--the moral
sciences tripos--philosophy at Cambridge--the natural sciences
tripos--science at Cambridge--the language triposes--list of the
triposes--changing value of the examination tests--the double
tripos--present conditions for the _B.A._ degree--modern changes in
the examinations--standard of the ordinary and honour degree,
examples.
[pp. 189-201] Method of tuition at Cambridge--the lecture--the
class--the weekly paper--the professorial
chairs--readerships--lectureships--Lambeth degrees--degrees by
royal mandate--honorary degrees--the “modern subjects”--and the
idea of a university.
A university differs from other scholastic institutions in conferring
“degrees.” Having taught a man his subject it offers him a certificate
that he in his turn is able to teach it: the “degree” originally
signified nothing more nor less than the graduate’s competence to
profess the faculty in which it was obtained. This certificate of
proficiency referred to the “three faculties” of theology, law, and
medicine, to which was added later “the liberal arts.” The titles of
“master,” “doctor,” and “professor” were at first synonymous. A master
was a doctor in his subject, capable of professing it. The title of
“master,” however, clung to the faculty of arts, that of “doctor” to the
three liberal or learned professions.
The following degrees are now conferred: in arts, the bachelor and
master (_B.A._, _M.A._); in divinity, the bachelor and doctor (_B.D._,
_D.D._--formerly _S.T.P._, _sacrae theologiae professor_); in laws,
bachelor, master and doctor (_LL.B._, _LL.M._, _LL.D._[259]); in
medicine, bachelor and doctor (_M.B._, _M.D._); in music, bachelor,
master, and doctor (_Mus.B._, _Mus.M._, _Mus.D._); in surgery, bachelor
and master (_B.C._, _M.C._). Besides which a doctorate in science
(_Sc.D._), and a doctorate in letters (_Litt.D._), are conferred on
graduates in laws or in either of the last four faculties who have made
some original contribution to the advancement of science or
learning.[260]
[Illustration: THE LAKE AND NEW BUILDINGS, EMMANUEL COLLEGE
The building is known as the Hostel, and was erected between 1885 and
1894.]
[Sidenote: The bachelor and exercises of the schools.]
The title of bachelor originally marked the conclusion of a period of
study; it was not a degree, and bestowed no faculty to teach. Here, as
elsewhere, a bachelor was an apprentice or aspirant to another status or
position; and he remained _in statu pupillari_ as he still is in theory
to-day.[261]
It is only in modern times that the conferring of a degree follows upon
a set written examination. For six hundred years the aspiring bachelor
and master obtained their status by public disputations in the schools.
Public exercises, called “acts, opponencies and responsions,” were
regularly held during the period of probation, and the student advanced
to the degree of master by steps which recall the rites of initiation in
the catechumenate. After his first year the “freshman” became a “junior
sophister”[262] in one of the faculties, and began to attend the school
disputations, without however taking part in them. In his fourth year,
as senior sophister, he qualified to be “questionist,” and presented
himself as such at the beginning of Lent with ceremonies which turned
him into a bachelor; ceremonies in which the Cambridge bedell figures
as a veritable deacon. The procession was formed on Ash Wednesday and
introduced into the arts schools by the bedell, who exclaimed: “_Nostra
Mater, bona nova, bona nova!_” and “the father” (the presiding college
senior) having proceeded to his place, the bedell suggested to him the
stages of the ceremony: _Reverende pater, licebit tibi incipere_, etc.
After this day the new bachelor was no longer a questionist but a
“determiner” who determined in place of responding to the propositions
raised in the schools. This status continued through Lent, and hence the
incepting bachelor was described as _stans in quadragesima_.[263]
[Sidenote: The master of arts.]
In due course the bachelor “commenced master of arts,” the inception
taking place in Great S. Mary’s church on the day of the “Great
Commencement” the second of July. This is the traditional time of year
for the granting of degrees, and the ceremony is still called
“Commencements” in Cambridge and in universities which, like Dublin, are
derivative institutions. The status now attained was that of _regent
master_, _i.e._ a junior graduate whose
[Illustration: THE CLOISTER COURT, SIDNEY SUSSEX COLLEGE
The new buildings on the left of the picture were designed by Mr. J. L.
Pearson and erected in 1890. In the distance we see the large mullioned
window of the Hall, which is part of the old college building begun
1596.]
business it was to teach the subjects he had himself been taught, for a
period of five years; after which he became a non-regent, or full
master.[264] The obligation to teach was part of the university theory
of studies; so that when a Cambridge professor of our own time
astonished his hearers by declaring “I know nothing of political
economy, I have not even taught it” he was speaking in the spirit of the
university maxim _disce docendo_. It was the scholar who had taught who
was called _magister_ and _doctor_ in old times, not the men who, as is
the case nowadays, “go down” with no other qualification than that of
the bachelor and are nevertheless allowed in due time to write _M.A._
after their names. For the _degree_ of _M.A._ has virtually ceased to
exist: no one now “commences master,” and the master of arts is simply
the bachelor who has spent three years away from the university, in
which he has had time to forget what he once knew. Indeed as between the
master and the bachelor the case is often inverted, and if the former is
an ordinary degree man and the latter an honours man, it is the latter
who is the master in his subject while the former is little else than a
tyro. That the degree of master carries with it not one iota more of
scholarship or experience is certainly not understood by the public, but
the fact that it is understood elsewhere supplies the reason why such a
small proportion of men now proceed to take it.[265]
[Sidenote: Written examinations.]
It was not till the xviii century that written examinations were
introduced, and from the day of their introduction the practice grew and
flourished. Originally teaching and tests had both been oral, it was
only as books became cheaper that the book in a measure supplanted the
teacher, the written examination came to supplant the public acts and
disputations, and _the writing down of knowledge_ became the
characteristic feature of Cambridge training. “Then know, sir, that at
this place, all things--prizes, scholarships, and fellowships--are
bestowed not on the greatest readers, but on those who, without any
assistance, can produce most knowledge upon paper.” “Read six or eight
hours a day, and _write down what you know_,” is a tutor’s advice ninety
years ago.
[Sidenote: The tripos.]
The _tripos_, although it did not take shape till the middle of the same
century derives its name from a custom of the xvith. On the day when the
bachelor obtained his public recognition he had as his opponent in
discussion one of the older bachelors who posed as the champion of the
university. He sat upon a three-legged stool “before Mr. Proctor’s seat”
and
[Illustration: DOWNING COLLEGE FROM THE ENTRANCE IN REGENT STREET
These buildings are in the classical style and are all
nineteenth-century work.]
disputed with the senior questionist. This stool or _tripod_ was
eventually to provide a name for the great written examination of
succeeding centuries--the _tripos_. The champion bachelor was addressed
as “Mr. Tripos,” and his humorous orations were called “tripos
speeches.” _Tripos verses_ were next written, and on the back of these
the moderators, in the middle of the xviii century, began printing the
honours list:[266] from this _tripos list of names_ the transition was
easy to _tripos_ as the name of the examination itself--the tripos
examination. These disputations degenerated in Restoration times to
buffoonery, but the principle of examination made steady progress,[267]
and there were probably no tripos speeches after the Senate House was
built. In the xvi and xvii centuries, however, great personages had acts
and disputations performed for their entertainment; and the tastes of
Elizabeth and her Scotch successor were consulted when “a physic act”
was kept before the former, while “a philosophy act” was reserved for
James.
There were declamations, which did not escape Byron’s ridicule, in the
xix century, but the last general public “act” was kept in 1839. The
_viva voce_ examination in the “Little go” which was only discontinued
14 years ago, and the _viva voce_ and the “act” for the medical
degree[268] are the only survivals to our day of that oral examination
by which the scholar in the public acts constantly responded to the
living voice of the _magister_. For the first time in their long history
silence settled down upon the schools, and the eye replaced the ear as
the channel of knowledge.[269]
[Sidenote: Subjects of study. _Trivium_ and _Quadrivium_.]
The subjects in which university students were from the first exercised,
were those of the Roman _trivium_ and _quadrivium_, and the three
faculties of theology law and medicine. A special importance must be
assigned to the school of grammar--the first member of the _trivium_--at
Cambridge. There is every reason to believe that it flourished there not
only in the xiii century, under the patronage of the bishops of Ely, but
also in the xiith. It was called the school of glomery (glomery,
glamery, grammery)[270] and continued to be of importance till the xvi
century, the last degree in grammar being granted in 1542.[271] Degrees
in grammar were, nevertheless,
[Sidenote: xii-xiii c.]
considered inferior to those in arts. To begin with, grammar was only
studied for three years, arts for seven; grammar made the clerk, arts
the professor. The introduction of the “new art,” Aristotle’s
[Sidenote: A.D. 1712.]
analytical logic, increased the importance of the second member of the
_trivium_: the name of Aristotle was a name to conjure with, but no new
texts came to light to add lustre to the acquirements of the classical
grammarian. As to the third member of the _trivium_, public rhetoric
lectures were delivered in Cambridge by George Herbert (1620); but a
century later Steele complains that both universities are “dumb in the
study of eloquence.” There were still however rhetoric lectures in the
xviii century, but they were not about rhetoric, and the public
declamations in the senate house must be regarded as the last homage to
this most ancient of arts, whose modern successor is the Union debating
society.
[Sidenote: The three liberal or learned faculties.]
If the original Cambridge schools were grammar schools after the pattern
of Orléans and Bury-St.-Edmund’s, then the introduction of the arts
faculty--the trivium and quadrivium--was the first step towards the
formation of a _universitas_; and its appearance in the xii century
would account for the university status of Cambridge in the opening
years of the xiii century.[272] The first of the three learned faculties
to take its place in the university was divinity, and with the rise of
the earliest colleges provision was made for the study of the two
faculties of theology and law. The faculty of medicine was the last to
gain a footing. Cambridge never became famous as a school of any of the
faculties in the sense in which Paris represented divinity, Bologna
law, Montpellier medicine. The study of the civil and canon law was,
however, prominent in the xv and early xvi centuries, but was shorn of
its ecclesiastical moiety during the chancellorship of Thomas Cromwell
when Peter Lombard and Gratian were banished the Cambridge schools.[273]
Of the two universities Cambridge alone retains a recognition of canon
law in the title of its bachelors masters and doctors of laws, _LL.B._,
_LL.M._, and _LL.D._, a title commuted at Oxford into ‘bachelor and
doctor of civil law,’ _B.C.L._ and _D.C.L._ The medical progress of the
early xvi century which had been marked by the foundation in 1518 of the
Royal College of Physicians reached Cambridge by means of two great men,
Linacre from Oxford and its own distinguished son John Caius. Peterhouse
had been the first college to admit medical studies, but our naturalists
and physicians of later times, not content with the fare provided for
them in England, took their degrees at the continental schools.
Medicine, the last to obtain recognition, is now the most prominent
representative of the learned faculties at Cambridge. Until 1874 when a
theological tripos was formed, admitting to a degree in that subject
only, theology was studied as part of the mathematical tripos. Law was
taken as an additional subject, and degrees in divinity and law were
proceeded to separately, as now. Satisfying the examiners in the
theological, law, or natural sciences tripos does not admit the student
to any but the arts degree. Medical students need not, however, graduate
in arts, but may proceed at once, after taking the Previous Examination,
to read for the _M.B._ degree.[274] In addition they must keep an “act,”
which consists in reading a thesis previously approved by the Regius
Professor of Physic. Having read the thesis (of which public notice is
given) in the schools, the candidate is orally examined by the presiding
Regius Professor of Physic. After this he becomes an _M.B._[275]
A candidate who has obtained honours in Parts I. and II. of the law
tripos or honours in Part I. in addition to an arts degree, is eligible
for the degree in laws and may proceed to take the _LL.B._, the _B.A._,
or both. Any candidate may “incept in law” (_LL.M._), without further
examination, who has taken a first class in both parts of the law
tripos. If he has not this qualification he must have attained an
honours standard in one part of the tripos, or be a qualified barrister
or solicitor, or their equivalent in Scotland. In this case he must
submit a dissertation on law, its history, or philosophy. The doctorate
of laws is obtained after making an application in writing and sending
in an original written contribution to the science of law. The _LL.M._
cannot incept till six years have elapsed from the end of his first term
of residence, and five years must elapse between the master’s and the
doctor’s degree.
[Sidenote: The doctorate.]
A master of arts or of laws becomes a bachelor of divinity after
subscribing certain declarations required by statute and preaching a
sermon in the University church. Four years later he must “keep an act”
_or_ print a dissertation, in Latin or English, upon some matter of
biblical exegesis or history, of dogmatic theology, ecclesiastical
history or antiquities, or on the evidences of Christianity. The “act”
is kept in the same way as that for the medical degree, and includes a
_viva voce_ examination. To proceed to the _D.D._ the same preliminary
formalities as for the _B.D._ must be observed,[276] and a dissertation
be printed on one of the same subjects. Five years must elapse between
the two degrees, except in the case of a _B.D._ who is also an _M.A._ of
at least twelve years’ standing. In fact the lapse of time is all that
remains of incepting and proceeding to the higher degrees.
[Sidenote: Development of university studies.]
Until hard upon the close of the xv century there was no development in
university studies. Erasmus in 1516 describes them as having consisted
until thirty years previously in nothing but Alexander (the grammar
text-book at Cambridge) the “Little Logicals,” the old exercises from
Aristotle, the _quaestiones_ from Duns Scotus. The study of mathematics,
the new Aristotle, a knowledge of Greek, had all come within the last
few years.[277]
[Sidenote: The development of the mathematical tripos.]
Gradually the study of these “arts” yielded to the mathematical tripos.
The subjects which had been intended to embrace a general education
dropped out,[278] those which dealt with mathematics or mathematical
physics encroached more and more, till in 1747 the historic tripos with
which the name of Cambridge is identified was fully established. The
conviction of the paramountcy of mathematical reasoning had been
emphasised at the university by the discoveries of Newton, and when its
mathematical studies were consolidated in the xvii century under the
influence of Newton’s tutor, Isaac Barrow, “philosophy” was understood
to mean the mathematical sciences, and continued to mean this and this
only in English mouths till the threshold of our own times.[279] “By
the study of the great relations of form,” writes an old Trinity
student from the other side of the Atlantic, the Cambridge man acquired
that “breadth of reasoning,” that power of generalisation, and
perception of analogy “in forms and formulae apparently dissimilar,”
which characterise the scientific mind. A study which bestows accuracy
of scholarship, the perception of order and beauty, and “inventive power
of the highest kind,” was that “in which for two hundred years all, and
now more than half of the Cambridge candidates for honours exercise
themselves.”[280]
[Sidenote: Wranglers.]
Euclid and Newton filled the Cambridge horizon, and summed, as we have
seen, all philosophy and all “arts.” Theology itself ceased to rival the
mathematical disputations which became the business of the schools _par
excellence_, and which were of such importance that the name of
_wranglers_ was exclusively applied to those most proficient in them,
and “the senior wrangler” held the first position in the university. To
attain this place it was necessary to have “fagged steadily every day”
for six or eight hours. The quality of a man’s work would tell for
nothing in the final result if he had neglected, with this end set
before him, to practise that mere mechanical “pace” which would serve
him in the great week.[281]
[Sidenote: The classical tripos.]
In 1822 the classical tripos was added. The history of classical studies
at Cambridge is of special interest. The introduction of Greek into this
country was a movement due directly to our universities: students of
Oxford first learnt the language in Italy, but Cambridge as a university
first gave it an academic welcome. The last echoes among Englishmen of
the most wonderful idiom the world has heard resounded in the school of
York, when John of Beverley, Wilfrid, and Bede could be described as
Grecians, and where Alcuin taught Greek. More than seven centuries later
the efforts of Fisher chancellor of the university of Cambridge with the
co-operation first of Erasmus and then of Croke, re-established Greek in
an English seat of learning.[282]
[Illustration: TRUMPINGTON STREET FROM PETERHOUSE
Part of the new buildings of Pembroke College are seen on the right, and
the Tower of the Pitt Press, commonly called by undergraduates “The
Freshers’ Church,” is seen in the distance. The entrance to Peterhouse
is behind the tree on the left of the picture.]
[Sidenote: Greek at the universities.]
Erasmus had given up his dream of studying Greek in an Italian
university and had settled down three years before the close of the
century at Oxford on hearing that Grocyn was teaching there.[283] He had
known some Greek before he went to Oxford, and he knew but little when
he left, for its acquisition was still his great pre-occupation when he
accepted Fisher’s invitation and went to Cambridge. The work of Grocyn
and Linacre left no trace in their own university. When Colet introduced
the study of Greek into his new school, Oxford showed itself hostile;
when the Greek of Erasmus and Croke had taken permanent hold in
Cambridge, the Oxford students rose up in arms against the Cambridge
“Grecians,” and dubbing themselves “Trojans” sought street brawls with
the “Greeks.” Finally, Sir Thomas More himself wrote a protest to his
old university, which, he wrote, was engaged in casting ridicule on
those who “are promoting all the interests of literature at your
university, and especially that of Greek.” “At Cambridge, which you were
always accustomed to outshine, even those who do not learn Greek are so
much persuaded to its study in their university that they praiseworthily
contribute to maintain a salaried professor who may teach it to
others.”[284]
Colet took Greek into our public schools, in face of the hostility of
his university; it was the Cambridge Grecians settled by Wolsey at
Cardinal College who established it at both universities, and it was men
like Ascham, Sir Thomas Smith, and Cheke who introduced it as Cambridge
learning to the world outside. It has been well said that classics “kept
a firm hold on the Cambridge mind.” The mantle of Erasmus Croke and
Cheke fell upon Bentley and Porson who had no rivals among English
classics and critics, and the services rendered by Cambridge as a
university in this direction have been maintained by the present
generation of scholars.[285]
[Sidenote: Colloquial Latin and Greek.]
By order of Thomas Cromwell “two daily public acts one of Greek the
other of Latin” were to be held in all the colleges.[286] The
Commonwealth Committee tried to revive the colloquial use of Latin and
Greek in 1649, but the use of Latin in halls and walks ceased in this
century, though it lingered in the college lectures, the declamations,
and the “acts and opponencies.” It lingered also in the college chapels,
but the only relic now remaining is the Latin grace in hall. The study
of the classics themselves declined at Cambridge during the reign of
Charles II. and Gray laments, while Bentley was still living, that these
studies should have “fallen into great contempt.”[287]
[Sidenote: The moral sciences tripos.]
It was the introduction of the classical tripos which gave a foothold
for mental and moral philosophy. Occupation with Greek metaphysics,
contact with the Greek mind, brought into relief the one-sidedness of
the mathematical mind. It also placed the two methods in sharp contrast.
For hitherto a fundamental antagonism between mathematical and
metaphysical method had been unsuspected. It was not till the dispute
between Whewell and Hamilton that the idea was pressed home that there
were two philosophical methods, not one; that not only the reasoning
which begs but the reasoning which questions the premiss has a right to
be heard; that there was a philosophy of formal proof and one of
philosophic doubt; that axiomatical reasoning lay on the one side, and
the enquiry into the validity of the reasoning process itself on the
other.
[Sidenote: Psychology.]
It was indeed by way of psychology that this other philosophy gained a
foothold in the university. It was the contact with the scientific
temper of Cambridge of psychology and psycho-physics--the modern
science _par excellence_, the point of contact between the experimental
method and mental philosophy, the fine flower of science since Darwin,
its complement, its interpreter--which ensured the introduction of a
moral sciences tripos. This it was which won recognition for an organon
other than the mathematical. Metaphysics captured Cambridge based upon
psychology, and here the two have never been divorced.
The problem of education at Cambridge before 1851 had been entirely
concerned with the mutual relations of mathematics, physics, and
classics. The two historic triposes had between them ousted even Locke
and Paley, the relegation of which to the ordinary degree work
nullified, for all serious philosophic purposes, the “grace” of 1779
which had devoted a fourth day to examination in “natural religion,
moral philosophy, and Locke.”[288] Whewell who had lectured in 1839 as
professor of casuistry on moral philosophy, was chiefly instrumental
eleven years later in forming the new tripos. The college which took the
leading part was S. John’s, where the Rev. J. B. Mayor was fellow and
afterwards examiner; and the first man admitted to a fellowship for his
attainments in this direction was a Johnian who came out senior moralist
in 1863. When the tripos was framed, within twenty-five years of the
final disappearance of all mental philosophy from the higher schools at
Cambridge, it included papers on logic and psychology, on metaphysics,
ethics, political philosophy and political economy. The political
subjects now form a tripos to themselves, the Economics tripos created
in 1903. Hort was a candidate in the first examination (1851) and L. B.
Seeley in the third: until 1861, when Whewell and Leslie Stephen were
among the examiners, the tripos was taken in addition to one of the
others, and did not confer a degree.[289]
That vampire of the Cambridge schools, mathematics, had absorbed not
only philosophy and the arts but also the natural sciences. It had been
however through one of the great metaphysicians, Robert Clarke, that
Newton’s physics had taken their place in the Cambridge curriculum, and
Locke and Newton were there side by side, and had entered there
together. It seemed, then, a simple revival and continuance of these
traditions when the natural sciences tripos was formed in the same year
as the moral sciences.
[Sidenote: Empirical science at Cambridge.]
Empirical science at Cambridge dates from Linacre and Caius. The Puritan
masters of the university discountenanced science, discouraged the
university’s higher mathematics, but were led by their liking for the
open bible greatly to favour the study of Greek. It is a remarkable fact
that the natural ally of the reform movement was “Greek” not natural
science.[290] Greek and “heresy” were equivalents; Caius, the ardent
champion of medicine and empirical science in Cambridge, was one of the
last to cling to the old “popishe trumpery.”[291] Just two hundred years
before the publication of the “Origin of Species,” someone writes to Sir
Thomas Browne the author of _Religio Medici_, from Darwin’s college at
Cambridge, saying that there were then (1648) “so few helps” at the
university for the student of medicine and science. With the Restoration
scientific interests were revived, London setting the fashion to the
seats of learning. But even at the close of the xviii century--that dark
age of the universities--there was a professor of anatomy and there were
lectures on “human anatomy and physiology” at Cambridge.[292] A few
years later there was no physiology and the only physical study was
astronomy.[293] Such
[Illustration: PEASHILL
The Chancel of St. Edward’s Church is seen behind the stalls in the
roadway, and the Tower of Great St. Mary’s in the distance. On the right
is the Old Bell Inn and the old town pump is in the foreground.]
was the state of affairs two or three decades before the creation, in
1851, of a tripos which included physiology, comparative anatomy,
chemistry, geology, botany, and mineralogy. The examination now
comprises papers in 8 subjects, and is divided into two parts:
chemistry, physics, mineralogy, geology, botany, zoology and comparative
anatomy, human anatomy, and physiology. In the second part the last
paper is upon human anatomy and vertebrate comparative anatomy.
Cambridge owes its present prominent position as a teacher in the
scientific world to the remarkable development of its scientific
laboratories and equipment. For the purposes of the natural sciences
tripos it possesses some of the finest laboratories and museums in the
kingdom. The great Cavendish laboratory was built in 1874, the chemical
in 1887, the engineering in 1894-9, the new medical school in 1904 with
the museum of geology, while the same year saw the erection of the most
complete botanical laboratory in England. Cambridge therefore which is
“the most ancient scientific school in the country” is also among the
best equipped.
[Sidenote: The study of modern languages.]
Within a century of the decay of Norman French in England, a knowledge
of modern languages began to assume value. Throughout the Tudor epoch it
was those ecclesiastics and lawyers who were also linguists to whom the
diplomatic posts and the secretaryships of state were entrusted. Latin
did not cease to be the common official medium, but the growth of
national dialects gave to a knowledge of these the importance which
they must always possess for the diplomat and the trader. “Esperanto”
will not take its place until nothing is spoken anywhere but Esperanto.
Some progress was made in these studies in both the universities in the
xvi century:--“Petrarch and Boccace in every man’s mouth--the French and
Italian highly regarded: the Latin and Greek but lightly,” writes
Gabriel Harvey to Spenser: but the xixth opened at Cambridge barren of
anything linguistic, ancient or modern, eastern or western, except the
uncouth Latin of the schools.[294] The first languages tripos was formed
in 1878 for the Semitic languages; the Indian languages tripos (1879)
now forms part, with the Semitic tripos, of the Oriental languages
tripos created in 1895. In 1886 the “medieval and modern languages”
tripos came into being.
[Sidenote: List of the triposes.]
The complete list of Cambridge triposes with the date of their
introduction is as follows:--(1) Mathematical 1747.[295] (2) Classical
1822. (3) Moral Sciences 1851. (4) Natural Sciences 1851. (5) Law
1858.[296] (6) Theological 1874. (7) Historical 1875.[297] (8) Medieval
and Modern Languages 1886. (9) Mechanical Sciences 1894. (10) Oriental
Languages 1895. (11) Economics 1903.
[Sidenote: Changing value of examination tests.]
The value of the tests to which degrees have been attached in the past
has varied considerably, and the same is true of the present. The _M.A._
degree in the xvi and following century was obtained with little or no
examination; the disputations, as we have seen, were often idle forms,
but the improvement in methods dates from 1680 when the proctors were
replaced by _moderators_ as overseers in the sophisters’ school. Fifty
years later the building of the Senate House opened the new era, and the
next twenty years (1730-50) saw rapid progress; so that the Cambridge
degree was still something better than the Oxford when at the end of
that century aspirants for degrees at both universities were adequately
described as “term-trotters.”[298] The conspicuous university learning
of the xvii century was untested and unstimulated by any adequate
examination test; but earlier still the sheer number of years passed at
a university must have had a value which is now lost. Seven years was
the rule at Cambridge in the xv, xvi and xvii centuries, and the early
history of the oldest of Cambridge colleges shows us the Peterhouse
students residing _all the year round_.[299] Nowadays the standards of
the honour and “poll” degree[300] are so wide apart that the terms
bachelors and masters of arts applied equally to all degree work, are
misleading. “He only wanted to take his degree, he did not work much”
someone said to me a short time ago, and one felt one knew that degree.
The honours class standard is also variable, and “a good year” raises
the first class standard unduly.
[Sidenote: The double tripos.]
The condition which characterised Cambridge studies before 1850 was that
the mathematical tripos was obligatory on all candidates for honours.
Between 1823 therefore and 1850 every classic was obliged to pass in one
of the three classes of the mathematical tripos--he had, that is, to
satisfy the examiners in two triposes. The results were often curious.
Men like Macaulay, who became fellows of their college, were “ploughed”
in the tripos, and professors of classics wrote _M.A._ after their names
in virtue of a “poll” degree. The native repugnance to mathematical
method in some men’s minds was constantly shown and at all stages of the
university curriculum; Stratford Canning was “sorely puzzled” and indeed
“in an agony of despair” over the study for which he was a “volunteer”
at King’s, and Gray refused to graduate rather than pursue it. On the
other hand the Cambridge “double first” meant a degree unrivalled in any
part of the world.[301]
[Illustration: OLD HOUSES NEAR ST. EDWARD’S CHURCH AND ST. EDWARD’S
PASSAGE
This Passage leads from the Market into King’s Parade. Part of the South
side of St. Edward’s Church is seen on the right. The Reformers Bilney,
Barnes, and Latimer preached here. The three Tuns Inn, praised by Pepys
for its good liquor, formerly stood in this passage.]
The present conditions for obtaining the _B.A._ degree are (_a_)
residence for nine terms within the precincts of the university[302]
(_b_) satisfying the examiners in one of the examinations, or groups of
examinations to which a degree is attached. One may satisfy them in one
of four ways: (1) by reading for and obtaining ‘honours’[303] (2) by
taking the Previous, General, and Special examinations of the ordinary
degree[304] (3) by being ‘allowed the ordinary degree,’ which may
happen when a man fails to be placed in any class of a tripos, but when
his work is allowed to count as tantamount to the examinations of the
ordinary degree. (4) by being “excused the General,” which happens when
a man has failed in the tripos examination, but his work is counted as
putting him half way towards the ordinary degree. The _aegrotat_ is a
fifth way. If a man who has read for honours or for the ordinary degree
falls sick, he is allowed to answer one or two of the examination papers
only, and if he shows adequate knowledge of these is granted a degree,
but is not placed in any class.[305]
There have been frequent changes and regroupings in all the examinations
described, and other reforms are in contemplation. In 1850 the
Universities Commission led to radical changes at both universities. It
is now proposed to simplify greatly Part I. of the mathematical tripos,
placing the candidates in divisions in alphabetical order, and thus
abolishing the senior wrangler.[306] This classification is the rule in
the second parts of all the large triposes, all of which have been
divided since their formation. The abolition of compulsory Greek in the
Previous Examination is bruited and re-bruited, but for the moment the
question has been set at rest (May 1906) by a decided negative vote of
the senate.
[Sidenote: The lecture and class.]
The method of tuition at Cambridge consists of the lecture, the class,
the weekly paper, and the examinations. “Reading” has, naturally, taken
the place of oral teaching to a large extent, but the lecture still
holds its place in the university. In the view of many of the seniors
that place is still too large a one: the lecture at which copious
(often verbatim) notes are taken is, no doubt, in many instances thrown
away, especially in those subjects in which the lecturer simply goes
over ground covered by the existing text-books. The class permits of
lecturer and student discussing difficulties, and here the college
tutor’s rôle is also of first importance;[307] the weekly paper (usually
a “time paper,” to be answered in three hours) tests progress in the
subject, and teaches a man how to “write down what he knows,” and to do
so in a certain given time.
[Sidenote: Professorships.]
There was no salaried professorship in the university until Lady
Margaret founded her chair of divinity in 1502. Before this, tuition in
each faculty had been assigned to its doctors, the tuition in arts was
left in the hands of the masters of arts. The next three professorships
to be founded were also in the 3 faculties: the Regius of Divinity by
the king in 1540, the Regius of Civil Law in the same year, and the
Regius of Physic.[308] Henry also founded Regius professorships of
Hebrew and Greek. In 1632 Sir T. Adams founded the Arabic, and in 1663,
Henry Lucas, M.P. for the university, the Lucasian of Mathematics; the
Knightbridge of Moral Philosophy was founded by a fellow of Peterhouse
in 1683. Between that date and 1899 (when the professorship of
Agriculture was founded) 35 professorships have been endowed, 16 of
which are in natural sciences and medicine, 5 for languages, 4 for
history and archæology, 2 more for law, 1 for mental philosophy and
logic, and 3 more for divinity, one of which, the Norrisian, is tenable,
and is now held by a layman. Fisher and Erasmus were the first holders
of the Lady Margaret professorship, and Selwyn, Lightfoot, and Hort held
it between the years 1855 and 1892. Bentley and Westcott held the Regius
professorship (1717, 1870). Sir T. Smith was the first to hold the
Regius of Civil Law, which was also held by Walter Haddon, and by Sir
Henry Maine when he was twenty-five years old, Glisson of Caius was one
of the distinguished holders of the Regius of Physic (1636), Metcalfe of
S. John’s and Cudworth both held the Hebrew professorship, Sir J. Cheke
was the first to sit in the chair of Greek following on three such great
predecessors and professors of Greek at Cambridge as Erasmus, Croke, and
Sir Thomas Smith. Isaac Barrow (1660), Porson (1792) and Sir R. C. Jebb
(1889-1906), all Trinity men, have also held it. The Lucasian of
Mathematics was held by Barrow, then by Isaac Newton, then by his deputy
Whiston of Clare, then by Sanderson of Christ’s, and the chair was
filled in the xix century by Airy and Sir George Stokes. Roger Cotes was
the first to hold the Plumian of Astronomy (1707) founded three years
previously by the Archdeacon of Rochester, who endowed it with an estate
at Balsham. Professor Adams, the discoverer of Neptune, held the
Lowndean of Astronomy and Geometry (1858-1892). The Regius of Modern
History (George I. 1724)[309] was held by the poet Gray, by Sir J.
Stephen, Charles Kingsley, Sir J. Seeley, and Lord Acton: the Cavendish
professorship of Experimental Physics (founded by Grace of the Senate
1871) was first filled by Clerk Maxwell and Lord Rayleigh; F. W.
Maitland (ob. Dec. 1906) held the Downing of Law; and the new Quick
professorship of biology has just been offered to an American
graduate.[310]
Next in dignity to professors are the Readers in the different subjects,
who act as a sort of suffragans and assistants to professors; and next
to these come the lecturers in branches of knowledge which range from
comparative philology to electrical engineering, from medical
jurisprudence to ethnology.[311]
[Sidenote: Lambeth degrees and degrees by royal mandate.]
The Pope was the fountain of graduate honour in the middle ages and
conferred degrees in all the faculties, and he does so still. Doctors
and masters from Rome would receive
[Illustration: MARKET STREET AND HOLY TRINITY CHURCH
In this picture Holy Trinity Church (of which Charles Simeon was
incumbent) with its spire may be seen on the left. The cool grey
building in the middle of the picture is the Henry Martyn Hall, a modern
structure. In the distance is seen the Tower and North side of Great St.
Mary’s.]
incorporation at Cambridge, and Englishmen without a degree would be
given, on occasion, a degree by the Pope.[312] The general statute of
Henry VIII. conveying
[Sidenote: A.D. 1534.]
to the primate all licences and dispensations which had heretofore “been
accustomed to be had and obtained from Rome,” transferred the faculty of
conferring degrees in England from the Pope to the Archbishop of
Canterbury. This faculty had, until the date of the statute, formed part
and parcel of the legatine powers, and had been exercised as such by
Wolsey. It was among the more important powers transferred under the
statute, relating to licences of the taxable sum of £4 and over, and
required confirmation by Letters Patent under the great seal, or
enrolment in Chancery. The right was exercised by successive
archbishops, and every faculty so granted rehearsed the authority of
parliament by which authority the said power was now vested in the see
of Canterbury. In the reign of George I. the power was for the first
time disputed. The then Bishop of Chester refused to induct a Lambeth
_B.D._ and a law suit followed, as a result of
[Sidenote: A.D. 1722.]
which a prescriptive and statutable right was made out for the practice.
The matter was then carried by appeal to the King’s Bench and decided in
favour of the archbishop, three years later, in 1725.
[Sidenote: A.D. 1660-1700.]
From the accession of Charles II. till the end of the century the usual
recipients were members of one or other of the universities, and when
this was not the case incorporation in Cambridge university was granted
with the proviso that no precedent was thereby created. Between 1539,
when Cranmer created a _D.D._, and the accession of Charles II., only
seven instances of archi-episcopal degrees are recorded.[313] Over 450
were conferred between 1660 and 1848, and some 334 have been conferred
since.[314] A Cantabrigian primate confers the Cambridge hood, an
Oxonian the Oxford. There have been many instances of the incorporation
of men who were recipients of the ‘Lambeth degree’ in one or other of
the colleges. The Lambeth _M.A._ does not include membership of the
Senate or of Convocation.[315]
During Stuart times there were several examples of the conferring of
degrees by royal mandate; a custom commuted to the now traditional
compliment, when a sovereign or prince receives a degree, of conferring
degrees on any persons he may wish associated with him in the honour.
Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, whose studies at Cambridge were
interrupted by diplomatic missions, was created _M.A._ by royal mandate.
[Sidenote: _Ad eundem._]
_Ad eundem_ degrees, admitting a graduate to the same degree which he
already enjoys elsewhere, are granted by all universities; but such
degrees are no longer granted at Cambridge as a simple right.[316]
[Sidenote: Honorary degrees, and the idea of a university.]
The university confers other “complete” or “titular” degrees on certain
persons who have not qualified for them by residence and examination at
Cambridge. A list of those on whom this honour has been bestowed since
1859 is printed in the Cambridge Calendar. The complete degrees are
conferrable upon members of the royal family, privy councillors, bishops
and bishops designate, peers,[317] the judges of the High Court, the
deans of Westminster, of the chapel royal Windsor, and of Cathedral
churches; and also upon heads of colleges in the university, and other
distinguished persons who already have a Cambridge degree and are either
conspicuous for merit or holders of university office. Titular degrees
may be conferred on Englishmen or foreigners of conspicuous merit.
A propos of a recent list of ‘birthday honours’ a weekly literary
newspaper reminded us “that commerce, politics, and retired generals are
not the only vitalizing forces in this country”; it blamed a public
which it described as “increasingly illiterate and sheepish,” and
adjured the universities to make no “concessions to popular prejudice”
but “to confine the honours they are able to give to those who deserve
them.” It is in fact ludicrous and absurd that the universities should
be expected to come in with their blessing in cases of non-academic
success, and that degrees should be mere acclamations of popular
verdicts. The public should have every reason to regard these as the
blue riband of academic attainment in contrast with the attainments of
successful ignorance or successful vulgarity, or indeed with all those
kinds of success which are sufficiently rewarded by the _vox populi_,
and in other ways. It is expected that a university should set a limit
to the assumption that every good and perfect thing is at the beck and
call of the mere plutocrat, and should confer its honours and seat in
its rectorial chairs only those persons who present academic
qualifications. When one sees with what punctilious assiduity every mark
and brand of tradesman and tradesmen’s interests receives recognition
nowadays, one turns with anxiety to the Cambridge list of honorary
degree men. The university’s awards have not yet however been assigned
to people who have grown rich on “Trusts,” business ‘slimness,’ or
industries like the canned meat industry; whose title to recognition is
that they have been successful speculators. How very nice it would be if
instead of installing gasometers in the leper colonies or sending the
latest pattern of trichord overstrung grand piano to the deaf and dumb
schools of Europe and America, some rich man, with a less pretty taste
for publicity, should endow the university with a million pounds
[Illustration: GREAT ST. MARY’S, FROM TRINITY STREET
Here we only get a glimpse of the Tower of the Church with King’s Parade
in the distance. In the foreground on the right is Caius College.]
sterling! Should he be the recipient of an honorary degree? Would it not
be churlish to refuse it? If anything could increase one’s respect for
the benefactor it would be _his_ refusal of this kind of recognition of
his services. However there is no harm in very occasional exceptions,
because these shout the exceptional circumstances and confuse no one. It
is different altogether when to create an honorary degree list Mr.
Anybody and Mr. Nobody are called upon to step up. It seems a simple
programme that periods marked by dearth in merit should also be marked
by dearth of awards, but when did a simple programme ever prove
attractive from the days of Naaman downwards?
When we say that neither the elementary nor the advanced studies of a
university exist simply with a view to providing the members of the
community with a profession or the means of making their living, we say
what is a little less obvious, and trench on ground which is hotly
debated. Thousands upon thousands, it may be urged, have always gone to
a university to learn a profession, and thousands who have not had this
end in view have yet gone up there with no intention of acquiring
learning. The university has always prepared for the professions, why
not for the industries; why should it not comprise technical colleges?
Hitherto, however, the universities have prepared men for the learned
professions, and there is a difference between learning philosophy,
theology, biblical exegesis, jurisprudence and political philosophy, or
physiology and comparative anatomy for the purposes of a life
profession, and learning agriculture, forestry, military tactics, or
mining engineering. The growth of great branches of industry has however
been as great as the growth of knowledge and the sciences; the
conditions of modern life are entirely and altogether changed,
competition extends far beyond the industrial world, to the universities
themselves, and to the struggle for existence of knowledge for its own
sake. Without supposing that this last condition will be permanent, one
may still think that the universities could not refuse to teach what are
called “the modern subjects,” which means industries like scientific
agriculture or electrical engineering that have more money in them than
the professions. In a way, too, it is only a turning of the tables; when
the learned professions were studied it was because they promised the
profitable careers.
It need not by any means be competition which urges the university to
undertake the ‘modern subjects’; it may be, and it is, the persuasion
that its rôle does not end with creating a career, that a university
possesses advantages extrinsic to the degree taken, or even the work
done at it. The truth perhaps is that the present conditions of life
afford an object to universities as far-reaching as has ever been
allotted to them since their foundation. In these days of haste, and
unchewed cuds of learning, they can suggest the value of leisure--and
when a man is now sent to Cambridge or Oxford this fact alone is some
security that he and his are content not to put haste and quick results
above and before everything else. The lazy man we have always with us,
the man in a hurry is a modern product, and suffers from a modern
disease with which a university is better able, by latent influence and
tradition, to deal than any other institution. And when it has taught
the value of intellectual digestion, the number of those things which
can only be well learnt by being gradually learnt, and in due season,
has the university nothing more to teach? Our modern malady of haste, of
quick methods, and quick results has a commercial basis, a certain
standard of values and returns which is best so described. The academic
spirit is the antagonist of this spirit, of the love of publicity, the
self-advertisement, the liking for cheap and unearned rewards. Even as a
business maxim it is being preached again that work done for its own
sake is the only lasting work. The university may be a bulwark against
false values in life, against the restlessness which is confounded with
action, the constant change which is not the same thing as adaptation,
against the prejudice that certain good things are not always and
everywhere ends in themselves. And there is another conspicuous service
which a university can perform. The commercial standard is the root of
our social vulgarity, and the academic life has been in all ages that
‘simple life’ of which we hear so much. It is not necessary for
generations of Englishmen to grow up to regard ‘poverty as a crime,’ or
to subscribe to the worship of mere prosperity and success. A university
may always be a protest against these and other mental vulgarities,
against even that debasing of the good coin of the King’s English in
which Milton saw the incipient undoing of a nation. What better place
for combating the last ridiculous refuge of English _mauvaise
honte_--the shamefacedness which prefers to speak one’s own language
incorrectly? Something every man at least who reads for a tripos must
learn about the uses of work, about its respect, something about breadth
of view and accuracy of detail--and also about the legitimate support
which such work is in life. It will be said that a man’s personal
character and his home life inculcate all these things and give him the
means to meet the shafts of outrageous fortune. But what the university
can give him which his own personal character and probably his home
surroundings cannot, is the way to set about making of learning a
possession for ever. Some nice person said “mathematics is such a
consolation in affliction,” and there is much to be said for the point
of view.
A university can teach these things because, unlike technical colleges
or seminaries for the professions, it exists first and foremost for the
advancement of learning. Traditionally inseparable from this is its
other object--education; and together they provide the tests it applies
to all such questions as ‘how far it shall adapt itself to a commercial
standard.’ For a university is not only a place of higher studies, it is
the nursery of study; and to instil the love of learning for its own
sake will always be required of it. In the words of Elizabeth of Clare:
“When skill in learning has been found, it sends out disciples who have
tasted its sweetness.” In the last resort universities must stand for
these things; the day when they cease to do so the idea of a university
will have oozed out of them. Like all good things the university will
bring forth from its treasure things new and old. We shall not look for
degrees in cricket, but there may be degrees in agriculture, degrees in
engineering, degrees in forestry. Why not, if a degree signifies a
diploma of competence? But there should be degrees and degrees. There
should be licentiates in the technical arts by the side of bachelors and
masters in the liberal arts: the university must claim to mete with its
own measure, and to teach its own lesson to all sorts of men. _Hinc
lucem et pocula sacra_----