WORK AND EXAMINATIONS
Tolerated ignorance--Lax discipline--Gibbon and Magdalen--The
“Vindication”--Opposing and responding--“Schemes”--Doing
austens--Perjury and bribes--Receiving presents--Magdalen collections.
Nowadays work is a factor in university life which has to be seriously
reckoned with. However strong one’s intentions to do none, however
convinced one may be of the complete absurdity and futility of cramming
dull stuff for no apparent good reasons, when there is such a glorious
time to be had doing nothing in the mornings and “sweating” at athletics
in the afternoons, yet the Dons have of late acquired a foolish habit of
sending a man down unless he succeeds in scraping through certain
examinations.
They feel it to be essential, through some misguided feeling of duty, to
harry the athlete and outdoor man, and at certain periods, even, to hound
him in white tie, and as much gown as he can lay hands on, to the schools,
and if, on his final exit from their clutches, they are not satisfied with
the results of his cramming, they invert their thumbs and down he goes! It
matters not whether he be merely a humble eightsman or the all-important
President of the Boat Club. The examiners are no respecters of persons,
and fear no man nor beast. The athlete retires willy nilly.
How different were the Dons’ views in Georgian times! Amhurst, serious for
once, declared that the keynote of the century was tolerated ignorance. He
made the statement boldly in the face of the high reputation of the Dons
for learning and classical knowledge, in defiance of the wrath of the
entire university. He was justified in making such an assertion, and I
have tried to prove the truth of his words in the course of this chapter.
“A gentleman commoner,” he said, “if he be a man of fortune, is soon told
that it is not expected from one of his form to mind exercises; if he is
studious, he is morose, and a heavy bookish fellow; if he keeps a cellar
of wine, the good natur’d fellows will indulge him, tho’ he should be too
heavy-headed to be at chapel in the morning.”
In proof of this assertion I will take the case, from a sheaf of others,
of Mr Harris, afterwards Lord Malmesbury, who was an Undergraduate of
Merton in 1763. “The discipline of the university happened also at this
particular moment to be so lax,” he wrote, “that a gentleman
commoner”--and it would seem not to be of great moment whether he had
riches or not--“was under no restraint, and never called upon to attend
either lectures, or chapel, or hall. My tutor, an excellent and worthy
man, according to the practise of all tutors at that moment, gave himself
no concern about his pupils. I never saw him but during a fortnight, when
I took it into my head to be taught trigonometry. The set of men with whom
I lived were very pleasant but very idle fellows. Our life was an
imitation of high life in London.” The entire lack of compulsion to work,
however, did not by any means cause Harris and his friends to dwindle into
mere “wasters.” From that little coterie eventually emerged Charles Fox
and William Eden.
Gibbon, the historian of world-wide renown, never did one stroke of work
while at Magdalen, nor was he ever asked, with any firmness, to do so. In
his much discussed reminiscences he set down that “some duties may
possibly have been imposed on the poor scholars, whose ambition aspired to
the peaceful honours of a scholarship; but no independent members were
admitted below the rank of gentleman commoner, and our velvet cap was the
cap of liberty.” Commenting upon the prevailing slackness of tutors,
Gibbon quoted his own experiences. The learned doctor to whose care he was
first confided, described as “one of the best of the tribe,” had suggested
that Gibbon should read the comedies of Terence every morning with him.
“During the first weeks,” wrote Gibbon, “I constantly attended these
lessons in my tutor’s rooms; but as they appeared equally devoid of profit
and pleasure, I was once tempted to try the experiment of a formal
apology. The apology was accepted with a smile. I repeated the offence
with less ceremony; the excuse was admitted with the same indulgence; the
slightest motive of laziness or indisposition, the most trifling avocation
at home or abroad, was allowed as a worthy impediment; nor did my tutor
appear conscious of my absence or neglect.... No plan of study was
recommended for my use; no exercises were prescribed for his inspection;
and at that most precious season of youth, whole days and weeks were
suffered to elapse, without labour or amusement, without advice or
account.”[20]
Such was the sum total of Gibbon’s relations with that worthy and
excellent man, for, the following term, he found on his arrival, that he
had departed from the college and that another tutor was installed in his
place. Of his connection with this second tutor the Magdalen man wrote as
follows: “Instead of guiding the studies, and watching over the behaviour
of his disciple, I was never summoned to attend even the ceremony of a
lecture; and, excepting one voluntary visit to his rooms, during the eight
months of his titular office, the tutor and pupil lived in the same
college as strangers to each other.” These accusations against the
Magdalen discipline have been most heatedly “vindicated” by the Rev.
James Hurdis, who declared it to have been more Gibbon’s fault than the
Dons’ that he was not looked after, because he gave flippant excuses which
he dubbed formal apologies, and had not the patience to continue the
course of lectures arranged and delivered by his tutors.
These vindicatory arguments do not hold water. All men will evade
authority if they can. Therefore it is surely the place of the tutor to
put his foot down and issue orders instead of letting his pupil wander at
will and do no work.
In all the many descriptions of a day in the life of a Smart, or an
ordinary gentleman commoner, or the river man, no references are to be
found as to their doing any work. On the contrary, Skinner said that
“Aristotle has been deserted for the bottle,” and launched into
descriptions of the empty schools. With tutors who considered politics and
consequent individual preferment of far greater importance than the mere
conning of pupils’ work, it is not to be wondered at that the only men who
did any work were those who were “bookish” by nature and preferred a quiet
studious life to one of revelry and slacking. For the most part these
worked independently of Dons, entirely of their own volition. As far as a
good degree went, it was utterly useless; for the method of passing
university examinations was, to put it mildly, a farce. The veracity of
Vicesimus Knox is not for one moment to be questioned, so that the
following account may be taken as a fair example of the customs of the
times.
“The youth, whose heart pants for the honour of a Bachelor of Arts degree,
must wait patiently till near four years have revolved. But this time is
not to be spent idly. No; he is obliged, during this period, once to
oppose, and once to respond, in disputations held in the public schools--a
formidable sound and a dreadful idea; but, on closer attention, the fear
will vanish, and contempt supply its place. This opposing and responding
is termed, in the cant of the place, _doing generals_. Two boys, or men,
as they call themselves, agree to do generals together. The first step in
this mighty work is to procure arguments. These are always handed down,
from generation to generation, on long slips of paper, and consist of
foolish syllogisms on foolish subjects; of the formation or the
signification of which the respondent and opponent seldom know more than
an infant in swaddling clothes. The next step is to go for a _liceat_ to
one of the petty officers, called the Regent Master of the Schools, who
subscribes his name to the questions and receives sixpence as his fee.
When the important day arrives, the two doughty disputants go into a large
dusty room, full of dirt and cobwebs, with walls and wainscot decorated
with the names of former disputants, who to divert the tedious hours cut
out their names with their penknives, or wrote verses with a pencil. Here
they sit in mean desks, opposite to each other, from one o’clock till
three. Not once in a hundred times does any officer enter; and, if he
does, he hears one syllogism or two, and then makes a bow, and departs, as
he came and remained, in solemn silence. The disputants then return to the
amusement of cutting the desks, carving their names, or reading Sterne’s
‘Sentimental Journey,’ or some other edifying novel. When this exercise is
duly performed by both parties, they have a right to the title and
insignia of Sophs; but not before they have been formally created by one
of the regent-masters.... This work done, a great progress is made towards
the wished-for honour of a Bachelor’s degree. There remain only one or two
trifling forms, and another disputation, almost exactly similar to doing
generals, but called _answering under bachelor_, previous to the awful
examination. Every candidate is obliged to be examined in the whole
circle of the sciences by three Masters of Arts _of his own choice_. The
examination is to be held in one of the public schools, and to continue
from nine o’clock till eleven. The masters take a most solemn oath, that
they will examine properly and impartially. Dreadful as all this appears,
there is always found to be more of appearance in it than reality, for the
greatest dunce usually gets his _testimonium_ signed with as much ease and
credit as the finest genius. The manner of proceeding is as follows: The
poor young man to be examined in the sciences often knows no more of them
than his bedmaker, and the masters who examine are sometimes equally
unacquainted with such mysteries. But _schemes_, as they are called, or
little books, containing forty or fifty questions on each science, are
handed down, from age to age, from one to another. The candidate to be
examined employs three or four days in learning these by heart, and the
examiners, having done the same before him when they were examined, know
what questions to ask, and so all goes on smoothly. When the candidate has
displayed his universal knowledge of the sciences, he is to display his
skill in philology. One of the masters, therefore, desires him to construe
a passage in some Greek or Latin classic, which he does with no
interruption, just as he pleases, and as well as he can. The statutes next
require that he should translate familiar English phrases into Latin. And
now is the time when the masters show their wit and jocularity. Droll
questions are put on any subject, and the puzzled candidate furnishes
diversion by his awkward embarrassment. I have known the questions on this
occasion to consist of an enquiry into the pedigree of a race-horse....
This familiarity, however, only takes place when the examiners are pot
companions of the candidate, which indeed is usually the case; for it is
reckoned good management to get acquainted with two or three jolly young
Masters of Arts and supply them well with port, previously to the
examination. If the Vice-Chancellor and Proctors happen to enter the
school, a very uncommon event, then a little solemnity is put on, very
much to the confusion of the masters, as well as of the boy, who is
sitting in the little box opposite them. As neither the officer, nor any
one else usually enters the room (for it is reckoned very _ungenteel_) the
examiners and the candidates often converse on the last drinking bout, or
on horses, or read the newspaper, or a novel, or divert themselves as well
as they can in any manner till the clock strikes eleven, when all parties
descend, and the _testimonium_, is signed by the masters. With this
_testimonium_ in his possession the candidate is sure of success. The day
in which the honour is to be conferred arrives; he appears in the
Convocation House, he takes an abundance of oaths, pays a sum of money in
fees, and, after kneeling down before the Vice-Chancellor, and whispering
a lie, rises up a Bachelor of Arts.”[21]
In order, therefore, to obtain the coveted privilege of going in for all
these learned and difficult examinations, an Undergraduate had to calm his
impatience and enjoy himself as best he could for four years. Then, having
succeeded in getting himself fairly comfortably in debt, having learned
how to string off a sonnet to the reigning toast and drink himself under
the table, he was esteemed ripe for the whispering of a lie, and was
conveniently fitted out with a degree. What more simple?
“And now, if he aspires at higher honours (and what emulous spirit can sit
down without aspiring at them?) new labours and new difficulties are to be
encountered during the space of three years. He must _determine_ in Lent,
he must _do quodlibets_, he must _do austens_, he must declaim twice, he
must read six solemn lectures, and he must be again examined in the
sciences, before he can be promoted to the degree of Master of Arts. None
but the initiated can know what _determining_, doing _quodlibets_, and
doing _austens_ mean. I have not room to enter into a minute description
of such contemptible minutiæ. Let it be sufficient to say, that these
exercises consist of disputations of syllogisms, procured and uttered
nearly in the same places, time, and manner, as we have already seen them
in doing generals. There is, however, a great deal of trouble in little
formalities, such as procuring sixpenny _liceats_, sticking up the names
on the walls, sitting in large empty rooms by yourself, or with some poor
wight as ill-employed as yourself, without anything to say or do, wearing
hoods and a little piece of lambskin wool on it, and a variety of other
particulars too tedious and too trifling to enumerate.”
The eighteenth-century lad became an Undergraduate on condition of
subscribing to a lie, and was sent down as a not undistinguished man after
seven years by pronouncing another in the ear of the Vice-Chancellor.
“As university degrees are supposed to be badges of learning and merit,
there ought to be some qualifications requisite to wear them, besides
perjury, and treason, and paying a multitude of fees, which seem to be the
three principal things insisted upon in our universities,” said Terrae
Filius--and the persistent joker spoke never a truer word. While
discussing the same question with some bitterness he asserted that a
schoolboy has done more learned things for his breaking-up task than were
required of an Oxford man after seven years’ residence. He more than bore
out Knox’s words as to the custom of making one’s examiner drunk and so
avoiding the irksome necessity of being asked awkward questions by him.
“It is also well known,” he wrote, “to be the custom for the candidates
either to present their examiners with a piece of gold, or to give them an
handsome entertainment, and make them drunk; which they commonly do the
night before examination, and sometimes keep them till morning, and so
adjourn, cheek by joul, from their drinking-room to the school where they
are to be examined. _Quaere_, whether it would not be very ungrateful of
the examiner to refuse any candidate a _testimonium_ who has treated him
so splendidly over night? and whether he is not, in this case, prevail’d
upon by bribes?”
So that in addition to making him drunk and incapable, but not
disorderly--necessarily--the astute candidate, realising that the degree’s
the thing, paid him a metaphorical thirty pieces of silver for his
betrayal. Moreover, the collectors, that is to say the Dons who were in
control of the determining, decided the days upon which the candidates
were to present themselves. On certain days called “gracious” days, the
examiners were only required to stay in the schools for half the usual
time. The consequence was, explained Terrae, “The collectors having it in
their power to dispose of all the schools and days in what manner they
please, are very considerable persons, and great application is made to
them for gracious days and good schools; but especially to avoid being
posted or dogg’d, which commonly happens to be their lot who have no money
in their pockets.”
The statues of course forbade collectors to receive presents, but a wink
is as good as a nod, and it was customary for every determiner upon
presenting himself to give the collector a “broad or half a broad.” In
return for this douceur “Mr Collector,” said Amhurst, “entertains his
benefactors with a good supper and as much wine as they can drink, besides
gracious days and commodious schools. I have heard that some collectors
have made four score or an hundred guineas of this place.”
The conclusion which is inevitably arrived at is that the examinations
for, and in fact the whole question of obtaining a degree, were a farce
and a sham, and that the authorities cared little who got one so long as
they received their fees and were left in peace to smoke and tope in the
common rooms.
The attendance at college exercises seems to have been equally dilatory.
Gibbon said that the Magdalen College exercises were futile and a waste of
time. He was tacitly allowed to stay away from them. The vindicator of
Magdalen, thinking to nail Gibbon down, went to the trouble of enumerating
term by term the exercises which the Undergraduates were supposed to
perform. As interesting reading it is worthy of quotation, but as a _coup
de grace_ to Gibbon it is absurd. If all Magdalen men were bound to
attend, why was Gibbon allowed to absent himself, or, if not allowed, why
was he not hauled over the coals?--and it is ridiculous to suppose that
Gibbon’s example was not followed by scores of fellow collegians. The
present-day “colleckers,” held terminally, are, more or less, in the
nature of a joke, but in those days, in spite of Hurdis’s burning loyalty
to Magdalen, the following exercises which correspond to them are
fearsome-sounding enough, but were more often than not unattended. “At the
end of every term, from his admission till he takes his first degree,
every individual Undergraduate of this college must appear at a _public
examination_ before the President, Vice-President, Deans, and whatever
Fellows may please to attend; and cannot obtain leave to return to his
friends in any vacation, till he has properly acquitted himself according
to the following scheme.
“In his _first_ year he must make himself a proficient--
“In the first term, in _Sallust_ and the _Characters of Theophrastus_.
“In the second Term, in the first six books of Virgil’s _Aeneis_ and
the first three books of Xenophon’s _Anabasis_.
“In the third Term, in the last six books of the _Aeneis_ and the last
four books of the _Anabasis_.
“In the fourth Term, in the Gospels of St Matthew and St Mark, on
which sacred books the persons examined are always called upon to
produce a collection of observations from the best commentators.
[Illustration: THE ORIGINAL ENTRANCE TO THE CLOISTERS AT MAGDALEN.]
“During his _second_ year, the Undergraduate must make himself a
proficient--
“In the first Term, in Cæsar’s _Commentaries_, and the first six books
of Homer’s _Iliad_.
“In the second Term, in _Cicero de Oratore_, and the second six books
of the _Iliad_.
“In the third Term, in _Cicero de Officiis_ and the _Dion Hal. de
structura Orationis_.
“In the fourth Term, in the gospels of St Luke and St John, producing
a collection of observations from commentators as at the end of the
first year.
“During his _third_ year he must make himself a proficient--
“In the first Term, in the first six books of Livy and Xenophon’s
_Cyropaedia_.
“In the second Term, in Xenophon’s _Memorabilia_, and in Horace’s
Epistles and Art of Poetry.
“In the third Term, in _Cicero de natura Deorum_, and in the first,
third, eighth, tenth, thirteenth and fourteenth of Juvenal’s
_Satires_.
“In the fourth Term, in the first four epistles of St Paul, producing
collections as before.
“During his _fourth_ and last year he must make himself a proficient--
“In the first Term, in the first six books of the ‘Annals of Tacitus,’
and in the _Electra_ of Sophocles.
“In the second Term, in Cicero’s ‘Orations’ against Catilina, and in
those of Ligarius and Archias; and also in those Orations of
Demosthenes which are contained in Mounteney’s edition.
“In the third Term, in the ‘Dialogues’ of Plato published by Dr
Forster, and in the _Georgics_ of Virgil.
“In the fourth Term, in the remaining ten Epistles of St Paul and the
Epistles general, producing collections as before.”
The above is undoubtedly a little programme guaranteed to keep the average
Undergraduate fairly busy in the use of midnight oil. But--how odd it is
that there is ever a “but”--the excited vindicator rather spoilt matters
and lessened the terrors of the programme by stating in his preliminary
paragraph that only those Dons were present “who may please to attend!”
Having digested already some few facts concerning the habits and hobbies
of the eighteenth-century Don, as well as the liberty accorded to
gentlemen commoners, there is no need to waste sympathy on “every
individual Undergraduate” of Magdalen. He merely lowered the right eyelid,
tapped the left nostril with the left index digit and “obtained leave to
return to his friends in any Vacation,” with the greatest ease and speed
and the most cordial of farewells to the President, Vice-President, Deans,
and any of the Fellows who cared to attend.