Literatuur over examens

Drawing on a wealth of new archival evidence and illustrations, Masters of Theory examines the origins of a cultural tradition through which the complex world of theoretical physics was made commonplace.

p. 25: "On an 1861 visit the English novelist Anthony Trollope was surprised to find that Harvard had no final examinations, as in his own land, no degrees conferring special honor, no 'firsts,' and no 'senior opts.' \ p. 37 "In 1869 the institution was a university in name only. (…) At the law school, diplomas were little more than certificates of residence. The medical school required no college training for admission; it routinely handed out the license to cure or kill after a year of desultory studies. William James' final examination consisted of a single question put to him by Oliver Wendell Holmes. "If you can answer that," Holmes informed the succesful applicant, "you can answer anything! Now tell me about your family and how things are at home."

“Whatever the explanation, the drift of data is clear. The repeated finding of a surplus of first-borns among eminent scholars appears to have nothing to do with any direct relationship of birth order to eminence, but is simply a reflection of the the fact that scholars, eminent or not, derive from a college population in which first-borns are in marked surplus.”

p. 280: At Oxford and Cambridge different kinds of examinations superseded the older scholastic disputations and exercises, acts and opponencies, which had dragged their tedious length through the 18th century. Historians have long been intrigued by whit appears to be one of the few efforts to move the Georgian universities in a serious direction, but no one has yet brought us very close to the purpose behind the change. The precise origins of the famous Senate House examinations at Cambridge and the statute of 1801 at Oxford remain as obscure as ever. It is naturally hard to pin down a change as evolutionary as the development of the Cambridge mathematical tripos, but even at Oxford, where the leading personalities behind the reforms are well known to us, nothing specific can be gathered from the spare accounts we have. An age such as our own is tempted to explain the origins of educational innovations according to its own experience. Not surprisingly, therefore, it has recently been suggested that the object of both examinations was to "raise and standardize performance." [A. V. judges, "The Evolution of Examinations," in The World Year Book of Education (London 1969), 23] While this explanation may even make sense for certain historical periods other than our won, it is not necessarily a satisfactory interpretation of the reasons behind the earlier reforms.-We cannot accept it without serious review. Surely the basic questions to be asked are why is it important to raise and standardize performance and what is to be gained by doing so? The modern rationale for examinations is based on three distinct but interrelated assumptions: (1) that examinations discover and encourage merit or achievement; (2) that merit can be measured,
p. 281: either comparatively through competition or absolutely; (3) that merit must be discovered, encouraged, and measured because only by these means can talent be correctly allocated among existing occupations or career opportunities. The third point is absolutely central to the meritocratic ideal. It has given rise to a theory frequently employed by social historians that examinations principally benefit a group or class rising in status and income and searching for means of extending its social and economic opportunities. A reverse theory is sometimes used which states that examinations or educational innovations sometimes benefit a group or class confronted by declining social and economic opportunities and desirous of holding off impending calamity. The three assumptions and several theories have a certain validity if carefully qualified when applied to the passage of the great civil service reforms of the mid-Victorian period. It makes a certain sense to speak of these reforms as embodying the principle of the career open to talent. But how far can the conventional explanation of the rise of the merit ideal be applied to the much earlier period when the Oxford examination system was in its infancy and the much older Cambridge tripos still in a state of development? To prove that the meritocratic ideal was the motive behind the reforms we would need to have a more solid grasp of certain historical variables. We would have to know, for example, the extent to which success in the Oxbridge examinations yielded definite valuable rewards and recognition both within the universities and outside of them. There is some evidence to suppose that as the igth century advanced a high ranking in the tripos order of merit nearly guaranteed a college fellowship at Cambridge. At Oxford this is less certain. There are colleges, Oriel in the 1820s for example, where the results of the Oxford public examinations were emphatically rejected as a suitable test of excellence for entry to the foundation. We must also remember that throughout the first part of the 18th century only a few financial awards of any kind were open to competition at either university; and even where they were, the majority of colleges showed a definite reluctance to pick candidates from outside their own walls. Instances may of course be cited where they did so; but even in these cases we can often find a denial that a precedent had been set. Only very large Cambridge colleges like Trinity and St. John's could produce a long list of excellent fellowship candidates from among their own ranks, and even in these foundations the claims of seniority in determining the succession to fellowships had to be respected. So fellowships, lucrative distinctions imposing few obligations and an obvious objective for an ambitious young man with no prior career prospects, can hardly be considered automatic rewards for excellence in study in pre-Victorian Oxbridge. {maar vergelijk Searle over hetzelfde. in de eerste bladzijden van zijn Cambridge History, volume 3] The idea of reward- p. 282: ing merit was certainly present, even in the later 18th century, but not the circumstances that made its concrete realization possible. Until we know more about the pattern of fellowship allocation and the frequency with which fellowships turned over, however, we must keep open the possibility that examinations were a factor. Outside the universities inthose occupations where distinction may have been important, it was the degree rather than the quality of the degree that mattered. The College of Physicians, for example, limited its fellowships to Oxbridge B.A.'s. A university degree, let alone an honors degree, made little difference at the bar and none in the administration of government, either at home or overseas. The schools and the church are the institutions where degrees obviously counted, but not necessarily honors degrees; and in the distribution of preferments many considerations the antithesis of merit were at work. Patronage or nomination or various forms of sponsorship, no doubt intricate and defying simple generalization, were the important determinants for livings in the church as elsewhere. There is even some evidence that the higher ecclesiastical posts were less accessible to pure merit in the period of the French Revolution than earlier, making it less likely that examinations were valued for the doors they could open. It is possible that restricted opportunities for advancement within the church hierarchy increased the demand for college livings. Before we begin to speculate, however, we must know more than we do at present about changes in the number of available college livings. Were there increases, either through the purchase of advowsons by the colleges or through gifts and donations, or were existing livings substantially augmented in value? Until we calculate whether the total number of livings rose or fell or whether benefices increased or decreased in value, we cannot adequately assess the effect examinations may have had on the career aspirations of undergraduates or the influence changes in employment opportunities may have had on the decision to strengthen examinations. Furthermore, any study of college livings inevitably returns us to the fellowship system, for fellowships determined the succession to college livings. There is, therefore, a considerable amount of work yet to be done on the problem of job opportunities for the various categories of Oxbridge undergraduate in the early 18th century before we can relate the growth of examination systems to the demand for better-prepared graduates. Unquestionably we can expect to find instances in which a "good degree" was a decided asset. Very likely the closer we come to 1850 the more we may find that there is a rising curve of correlation between the honors student and recruitment to elite positions. But in 1800 or 1810 or 1825 this could not have been the case. The merito- cratic ideal does not help us find the roots of the famous examination systems. The undergraduate in search of a career was far more interested in making contacts, in finding friends whose families wielded influence and patronage or were in a position to make powerful recommendations. A reputation for ability earned at the university might bring and no doubt did bring talent to the attention of those who could dispose of it; but merit had to be accommodated within the existing network of patrons and sponsors. Perhaps this is the way in which the problem should be seen. If it is not possible, given the evidence currently at hand, to connect the origins and growth of competitive examinations to changes in the occupational structure of English society in the later Georgian period, it is equally impossible to use the theories of rising or falling social mobility. There is no major new or old class or status group in the undergraduate population which is desirous of opening opportunities for itself or feels its position in the social structure threatened by changes in the society as a whole. That there were individuals who attempted to extend their career opportunities does not invalidate this point. If we use income rather than social class as the operative variable, interesting results might emerge as the two are not necessarily synonymous. But we are not yet in a position to offer generalizations based on detailed estimates of the family income of members of the undergraduate community, especially the changes in family circumstances which undoubtedly occurred. At this time we must seek other explanations for the reasons behind the famous reforms, explanations that will not necessarily exclude conclusions derived from detailed studies of career opportunities. We must approach the problem in a different way, looking inward as well as outward. We must try to recapture the beliefs of the dons mainly responsible for the changes, explaining to the extent the surviving evidence will allow the motives and circumstances behind the examinations and especially the institutional and historical context in which they set roots and grew. We must then turn to the examinations themselves, showing how their internal characteristics yield further evidence for the reasons behind their revival. Finally we must return to the undergraduates. They were after all the ones who were expected to sit the examinations and in fact did so, reluctantly at first but in rapidly increasing numbers. We shall find that undergraduates who complained incessantly about their teachers and about the restrictions of the old college system did not protest against the necessity for tests, even when they had reservations about the manner in which the examinations were administered. The nearly universal acceptance of the principle of competitive examinations by undergraduates is a surprise
p. 288: in hall before the president and seniority every term. 114 At Trinity College, Cambridge, an entrance exaniiination was started in 18io, although the examination was not competitive and certain categories of students were exempted. Also at Trinity a decade later third-year students were required to take a special examination. This meant that students at Trinity now had to take an examination every year, for it had long been the practice to require them of first anj second-year students." At Cambridge in 1824 another university examination was started for all second-vear students and at the same time a second tripos examination, this one in classics, began. In the second half of the iSth century Oxford offered two chancellor's medals for Latin verse and an English essay, and in 18 1 o a third medal for a Latin essay was instituted. In 1817 the Craven Scholarship of the university was opened to competition, the money having previously been claimed by founder's kin. In both universities in the first third of the igth century this kind of activity multiplied., miscellaneous exercises, themes, decl;mations were available for competition, and various kinds of minor but not insignificant rewards for academic success became commonplace as efforts were made to improve the academic tone and reputation of the ancient universities. Numerous opportunities still existed for evading serious academic work, and several colleges, King's College, Carnbridge, being one, held onto ancient privileges which excused their students from university examinations. However, by 1830, there could be no doubt that both universities had attempted ~o reduce the nurnber of their historical failings, and if this attempt was not generally recognized in the public press, it was because undergraduates seem(~ in some respects to be more independent than ever before.
VIII In order to understand the connection between the systems of university-level examinations at Oxford and Cambridge and the attitude of dons toward the independent student it is necessary to discuss the characteristics of the new exercises. The fact that new examinations were founded is in itself a landmark but is not sufficient to explain why the examinations developed in a particular direction. It is necessary for a moment to return to the scholastic disputations which both the tripos and literae kumaniores ("greats") and mathematical exaniinations of Oxford superseded. While the new examinations were eventually to go off into an entirely new direction, they were in the beginning influenced by the disputations in several important ways. The disputations were debates according to the rules of scholastic note 84 W. C. Costin, The History of St. John's College, Oxford (Oxford 1958), 24;_ note 85Ball, Trinity Notes, 143.
p. 302: The changes occurring in the universities should be recognized as striking cultural achievements. They did not just happen. The examinations did not merely slip into the unreformed universities. They were not simply a change in educitional policy. They required whole ranges of adjustment in values and behavior, the imposition of self-discipline, for example, in a society who governing élites were accustomed to free time and free schedules. In historical perspective the examinations were a major innovation, and the first third of the 19th century deserves a unique place in the history of the ancient universities.
p. 289 logic. The object was to find some fallacy in the argument of an opponent, some technicality by which he could be stopped. There was naturally some incidental testing of knowledge, since the syllogisms depended upon an acquaintance with traditional authorities, but it was the debate more than the knowledge that commanded interest. A debate implied a winner or a loser, and there was consequently an element of competition in the old exercises. A debate also implied an audience. Hence the disputations were called public examinations, and the disputants were encouraged to perform. Winning the dispute was important, but winning in front of an audience, especially an animated audience, was exhilarating, A good wrangle excited curiosity and interest. Losing the debate was a public embarrassment and could in no way be concealed. (86) By the middle of the 18th century the disputations at both universities had deteriorated because students did not take them seriously, and the universities did not insist upon adequate preparation. The disputations themselves had become so formalized that answers could be virtually rehearsed and all possible responses reduced to a few working formulas. Even this required some attention, however. As there were numerous undergraduates who did not even bother to rehearse, various kinds of cheating went on. The story circulated at Cambridge that one teacher devised a means of signaling answers to his pupil from the audience by the way he opened, buttoned, or threw back his coat. (87) Even if the story is spurious, it makes a point. An early Oxford critic, John Napleton, Fellow of Brasenose, appreciated the features of the disputation and advocated reviving the form in the 1770s. He was especially interested in the practice of having disputants argue in public. A debate in front of a group of fellow undergraduates and dons, he thought, enabled the university to encourage industry and expose indolence.88 The scholastic examinations were supposed to have done that, but moderators had corrupted the system by preventing matches between men of unequal ability or different habits of work.119 What was required as an antidote to the endemic laziness of students was an appeal to lofty values such as public honor, or the threat of its opposite, public disgrace. Napleton's thinking was perfectly in keeping with the ideology of high Georgian neoclassical culture with its emphasis on appearance, note 86 6 Henry Latham, On the Action of Examinations Considered as a Means of Selection (Cambridge 1877 integraal online), 985, has some interesting remarks along these lines. note 87 The Book of the Cambridge Review, 1879-1897 (Cambridge 1898), 145. note 88 John Napleton, Considerations on the Public Exercises for the First and Second Degrees in the University of Oxford 0773), 24, 45-46, 12. note 99 Winstanley, 45.
p. 290: style, and manner. For at least half a century writers, publicists, and satirists had attempted to raise the level of social behavior by emphasizing the ideals of reputation, honor, and virtue and by repeating constantly the favorite maxims and sentiments of great Roman moralists of the rhetorical tradition. The appeal of their writings lay in the connections that could be made between appearance and virtue and the ease with which the higher qualities praised in antiquity could be passed off as manners. Certainly style and a little Tully were useful in disguising the pervasive realities of Georgian social and political life, the world of connections, special arrangements, self-interest, and nepotism. Napleton's proposals were part of the reforming spirit of the 17705 that included the Feathers Tavern antisubscription movement and examination controversy at Cambridge. They did not carry far in his own time, however. The new examination statute at Oxford nevertheless proved that the influence of the disputations was not altogether absent. The new examinations were primarily viva voce. Although written parts were added a few years later, the examinations remained basically public and took place, as a critic of 1827 reported, before a large body of spectators. (90) At Cambridge the old disputations lingered on side by side with the newer tripos until 18 3 9, with a good dispute occurring only every now and then. While by statute only the disputations were required for a B.A., in practice the tripos became indispensable as early as 1790. Even in 1763 the disputations were really no more than a sorting out procedure for the tripos to decide who was to compete for distinctions in the final round. Like the Oxford examinations the tripos had been oral in the first decades of its existence. After 177o all questions were dictated orally but answers had to be written down while examiners paused between questions so that students could finish their writing. Theoretically examiners were empowered to ask oral questions until 1827 when new regulations turned the tripos, both questions and answers, into a completely written examination in theory as well as practice?' Gradually, but only gradually, the Oxford examinations followed the path of the tripos and became mainly written examinations. In the early 1830s the B.A, part of the examinations required five days of writing and only one day of viva voce examining. This change was note 90 Thomas Vowler Short, A Letter Addressed to the Very Reverend the Dean of Cbrist Cbureb on the State of the Public Examinations in the University of Oxford (Oxford 1822), 16. note 91 Ball, Matbematical Tripos, 180-2 14, and Cambridge Papers (London i o 18) 2 S 2316; Winstanley, Early Victorian Cambridge (Cambridge 1955), 149-52.
p. 291: partly the result of what a perceptive Victorian called the tendency of examiners to introduce modifications to suit their own convenience. "Greats" was an examination in many subjects, and the range was far too extensive for most exarm'ners, especially in the days of oral examining. It was easier to evaluate a written examination, especially if the number of subjects was litnited. (92) There were other considerations, however, besides the internal development that pushed the Oxford and Cambridge examinations in a direction different from their origin. The first was the same reason that made dons suspicious of the new debating societies, the desire to avoid controversy. This was a distinct departure from the spirit of the old disputations. A vigorous dispute was exactly what spectators wished to hear. But in the first third of the igth century dons were afraid the wrangles would be over controversial political and religious questions. Napleton had concerned himself with this difficulty. He speculated that the disputations had been successful in past centuries because books were in short supply and therefore knowledge was uncertain. Students went to hear a dispute not only to experience vicariously the joys of combat but also to learn. Napleton more than hinted that in his own time knowledge was no longer uncertain. All the essential answers to great philosophical and religious questions were known. Hence fresh answers were not to be expected, and controversy was unnecessary? (93) Georgian sentiment on the question of original knowledge, while never rigid, nevertheless leaned in Napleton's direction. While there was great and confusing discussion concerning whether it was possible to be original, whether gemius could exist without rules and whether rules followed nature, the general tendency in literary, artistic, and academic circles was to regard knowledge as foreknown or received. Originality was not valued per se but had to depend upon imitation. Of classical origin, this artistic doctrine of course permitted considerable variety. As Sir Joshua Reynolds wrote, :the highly disciplined mind could be safely allowed to play on the edge of fancy. But undergraduates, whose faculties had yet to be disciplined and whose activities were suspicious, could hardly claim this intellectual privilege. Even among scientists, until the first part of the igth century, there was general agreement that absolute truth had been reached or was capable of being reached, even though here too it was possible to find differences of opinion on how real a mathematical theorem or proposition could be. Neoclassicism reinforced these general assumptions by the importance it attached to a few fundamental axioms of human be note 92 See Latharn and also W. R. Ward, Victorian Oxford, 56~57. note 93 Napleton, 17.
p. 292 havior and the respect paid ancient writers for having perceived universal principles in all areas of civilized endeavor. The net conclusion of Georgian thinking on the nature of knowledge was to regard it as more closed than open and to discourage students, especially in times of national and international disturbance, from too much speculation and free-thinking. William Hazlitt's essays of the early 1820s, wherein genius was defined as "exclusive and self-willed, quaint and peculiar," and originality as "the discovery of new and valuable truth," open a door, if not the very first door so to be opened, onto another and to us familiar world .94 Copleston, who as a tutor at Oriel actively supported Eveleigh's reforms, unequivocally believed that received knowledge alone constituted a university education. It was less important, he thought, to produce a few great minds "exploring untrodden regions" than to turn out "an annual supply of men, whose minds are . . . impressed with what we hold to be the soundest principles of policy and religion." Copleston denied that he was adamantly opposed to discovery and experiment, but he did not think they were appropriate to a university. "Let the experiments be tried, and repeatedly tried, in some insignificant spot, some corner of the farm: but let us not risk the whole harvest of the year upon a doubtful project." In religion there were no discoveries whatsoever to be made. "The scheme of Revelation we think is closed, and we expect no new light on earth to break in upon us. (95) Another Oxonian, although not a don, repeated these sentiments in a milder tone in 1810. Commenting upon the university curriculum, he observed that as there was little time at the university to teach anything but the rudiments of knowledge, it was important "to teach, in the first place, those old and established principles that are beyond the reach of controversy." 96 On this great educational question the opinions of Cambridge men were indistinguishable from those of Oxonians. A famous senior wrangler, Frederick Pollock, looking back from 1869 to his Cambridge experiences in 1806, thought that -latterly the Cambridge examinations seem to turn upon very different matters from what prevailed in my time. 1 think a Cambridge education has for its object to make good members of society-not to extend science and make profound mathematicians."(91) In 1821 an obscure, well-intentioned gentleman wrote to the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge proposing to found two annual prizes to be awarded to two bachelors who note 94 William Hazlitt, Selected Essays, ed. J. R. Nabholtz (New York 1970), 3 2, 38. note 95 Copleston, 150-52. note 96 Henry Home Drummond, Observations Suggested by the Strictures of the Edinburgb Review upon Oxford ... (Edinburgh 1810), 17. note 97 Ball, Matbematical Tripos, 113.
p. 293: passed the best examination in four works of religion and theology: the Bible, the Homilies of the Church of England, Bishop Pearson on the Creed, and Burnet's abridgment of his own history of the Reformation. "In fixing on the forementioned Books 1 have endeavoured to select such as are altogether unobjectionable."" Finally Latham, in surveying the history of examinations in England, understood the dislike of questions that allowed interpretive answers when he remarked that ethics disappeared as a tripos subject in the first part of the igth century because it left too much room for varieties of opinion. (99) The desire to reduce the area of controversy that an examination might provoke was one of the main reasons tlic examinations ceased to be oral and became written. Historians usually associate the growth of written examinations with the preference for more rigorous and ob)ective examinations. In the written examination, especially if it is taken anonymously, external considerations like personallty"and manner do not influence the outcome. Nor is the examiner allowed to favor candidates from certain colleges or introduce pet topics without warning, as was happening at Oxford in the 1820s.(100) It should now be apparent why a conclusion that the object of the new examinations was to "raise and standardize performance," if routinely correct, is also insufficient. It should also be apparent that there is no contradiction between the search for objectivity and the desire to reduce controversy. The supporters of the examination system earnestly desired to improve the standard of undergraduate achievement. The way to do so was to devise a test of excellence immediately recog111zable. This meant that the way to achieve a more accurate and certain means of evaluating a student's work was to narrow the range of likely disagreement and carefully define the area of knowledge students were expected to know. It is interesting to observe that once this decision was reached, certain famous innovations converuently encouraged the trend. Technical changes permitting greater precision of reasoning, like the new analytical mathematics at Cambridge, were applicable only to written examinations. As Whewell complained in the i 840s, the continental notation was unsuited to oral examining. (101) There were other reasons to explain why written examinations were preferred to viva voce ones. It could be arguedand was-that not only was a greater degree of fairness and accuracy possible in evaluating written answers, but that the entire examination experience was positive rather than negative. In the written examination a student was note 98 Cambridge Univ. Libr., Cam.a.500.5". note 99 Latham, 127-28. note 100 Short, iSn.; Ward, 58. note 101 William Whewell, Of a Liberal Education ... (London 1850), pt. 1, 186.
p. 294: examined only in what he knew, whereas in the viva his weaknesses were probed. There is no reason to suppose that this argument masks a more basic fear. It takes more than one opinion to support a change. There is a last important reason why written examinations in time supplanted oral ones, and that is the sheer number of undergraduates presenting themselves for the Schools. As matriculation levels rose and the examinations became a necessary trial for all ambitious students. the burden of examining increased. Whereas only a handful of Oxford students had to be examined orally in the first decade of the igth century, several hundred came forward in the I820S. What had been the work of only a few days became the weary effort of several months. Written examinations were the solution to this problem as they were. seen from a certain viewpoint, the answer to another. There is no conspiracy of dons at work, and no conspiracy theory intended by this analysis. It is not necessary to deny that there .,.-ere forthright educational motives behind the examination system in order to affirm that the examinations also performed a disciplinary function and were strongly regarded as essential instruments of socialization. Nor is it a question of mixed motives so much as entangled ones. Education was synonymous with discipline, indistinguishable from niefit conduct-not the first nor the last time in the history of teachingThroughout the second half of the i8th century reformers propowd educational changes in both universities with the problem of undergraduate indolence primarily in mind. Even Jebb, the most politicany radical of the reformers, spoke in conventional terms when he aimed his proposals mainly at the wealthiest students in Cambridge, that 15. by universal agreement the most idle. The Georgian academicians, living before the great knowledge revolution of the mid-igth century-, were satisfied if they could produce a particular sociomoral "-pc whose behavior could in some sense be guaranteed. This is the lesson that lies in the reading list Chatham sent his nephew, instructing him not to make additions to it. "I propose to save you much time and trouble, by pointing out to you such books ... as will carry you the shortest way to the things you must know to fit yourself for the business of the world, and give you the clearer knowledge of them, by keeping them unmixed with superfluous, vain, empty trash. " (102) With the coming of the French Revolution and the realization that learning was power, the task of university education took on a greater urgency. Augustan ide* were reinvigorated and given an added boost by the pervasive neo-classical revival. The possibilities of examinations were seen in a new light. The evolution of the written examination suited the reasoning of note 102 Letters Written by the Late Earl of Chatbam, 50-51.
p. 295: the times. To simply associate that reasoning with the search for objectivity is to misunderstand the prevailing academic temper and to ignore the cultural assumptions and historical circumstances of the period. At both universities the idea of a public examination before spectators or before examiners went out in the I830s, and a parallel trend, objective, noncontroversial examinations in written form, became the predominant mode of examining. This did not mean, however, that the idea of a public reward or a public shame completely disappeared as well. It merely took a new form. A different solution was found to the old problem of incentive. Students were no longer to be embarrassed in public, but neither was their fame or failure to be hidden under a bushel. The practice of printing the results of examinations and ranking students according to performance was a feature of the examinations almost from the start. Both universities adopted classes of performance, but Cambridge went even further and listed the results of each examination in strict order of merit for all the world to read and know. The examinations acquired their famous reputation for being competitive, and gradually a system of marks was introduced to hasten the trend toward severe and accurate appraisal.(103) Another point to consider in connection with changes in the form of examining at Oxford and Cambridge was the difficulty both universities experienced in trying to persuade students to take the new examinations. Napleton, who was writing at a time when the hard-working student was the butt and victim of other students, recognized the problem and suggested that examiners use variable standards in order not to humiliate obviously mediocre students.` In the earliest days of the new examinations, it was recognized that many students would never achieve a very high standard of performance either because they were stupid or indolent by nature or because they were so well connected and wealthy that virtue and reputation acquired through scholarship were of no consequence to them. Their careers were guaranteed and did not require academic success. For a long time it was known that most dents could be made to study for only negative reasons-what was known in utilitarian thinking as self-interest. This idea was already prese~nt in Paley's Cambridge and deeply offended a sensitive romantic like Wordsworth. 115 It also seemed to contradict note 103 Ball, Matbematical TripOS, 2 13. note 104 Napleton, 29. For the same reason the Gentleman's Mag. of 1782 proposed private examinations for students "having dull parts" (Haverfield, 430). note 105 The point of Schncider's book. See also A. W. Hare, A Letter to George Martin, Esq. (Oxford 1814), IS.
p. 296: the neoclassical idea of virtue being its own reward. Yet rewards and punishment were for dons the only realistic way of coping with the fact that most careers were still started by pationage, that founder's kin still had claims on certain emoluments and that most scholarships and fellowships were still restricted, although this dies not mean they were entirely noncompetitive.
A practical solution was devised to solve a problem that was otherwise beyond reach. Two different degree tracks were created for the two very different groups of undergraduates in the universities. The best or reading student would take an honors degree, and the weak or lazy student would study for an ordinary or poll degree, as would that occasional high-minded undergraduate who resented the narrow subject-concentration and ethos of expediency in the new examinations. At Cambridge the formal distinction between honors and an ordinary degree was introduced in 1828. At Oxford an honors category existed from the start. The usual method of distinguishing honors from passmen was to regard the lowest class as having taken a pass degree and to leave the names of these students off the printed list. Their public disgrace in the early years of the Oxford examinations took the form of not being mentioned. The distinctions between honors and ordinary students permitted examiners to concentrate on the better students and to make the honors schools or tripos as difficult and objective as seemed necessary to wipe out old rankling reproaches.
IX The developing tradition of the honors student joined with the trend toward sociability to produce yet another outstanding feature of the student life of the period, the reading and travel party. Circles of reading students organized to prepare for examinations, and famous friendships resulted. The reading set became one of the principal ways in which the late Georgian and early Victorian intelligentsia met and formed. The first of the rending and travel parties started at Cambridge around 1805, and we hear of the Oxford Cantabs by 1830. 106 Almost from the start the Cambridge students began the practice of going away to the Lakes or Scotland for study and companionship in more peaceful and what were regarded as more appropriate surroundings than the still rowdy universities. This was a new form of the grand tour, far less expensive, more romantic - a genuine retreat rather than mere retirement far away from the selfseeking and narrow-minded dons of the university. The Long Vacation and other breaks were spent away from the universities as studious undergraduates asserted note 106 Wordsworth, The Undergraduate, 189.

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