OXFORD AND GREEK 647 



university and then " send him down " to his school or home 

 till he is of standing for " Mods " and has passed. It was but 

 a detail, that in time the university was forced to admit to 

 Responsions itself — as well as to other examinations " in lieu 

 thereof" — persons who were not yet registered members of 

 the university at all but only " on the list " of some college. 

 Even now, however, there are survivals : the Delegacy for 

 Unattached Students, for example, does not insist that a man 

 shall have passed Responsions before it admits him to residence ; 

 and a college occasionally grants the same privilege, especially 

 to a man whose course involves him in what is known as an 

 "additional subject." Thus Responsions, originally an internal 

 examination designed to test an Oxford man's progress in his 

 work and his fitness to enter on more advanced courses, all (it 

 must be remembered) involving close study of Greek authorities, 

 has been perverted to serve as an external obstacle-race by 

 which to test the capacity for cram of certain science men, 

 modern historians and students of modern languages; especially 

 if they happen to have been educated at Greekless schools 

 and so have not " climbed up some other way " with one or 

 other of the numerous certificates of exemption. 



Thus Responsions still tests Greek, Latin and Mathematics 

 and nothing more, simply because, when Responsions was 

 instituted, all the studies for the Arts degree were studies which 

 required these subjects and nothing more, as the essential 

 preliminary and equipment. History, Geography, General 

 Knowledge and English were either to be acquired — as indeed 

 they were — in the course of a man's Oxford reading or, in 

 so far as they also were pre-requisites, it w T as the business 

 of the college or hall or of an individual master to withhold 

 an introduction to the Vice-Chancellor from any one who had 

 not acquired them. The turning of " a piece of Spectator into 

 Latin, . . . the construing of half a dozen lines of Livy and 

 Homer and the answering of a few questions was a mere form. 

 Mr. Slowcoach's long practice enabled him to see in a very few 

 minutes if the freshman before him (however nervous he might 

 be) had the usual average of abilities and was up to the business 

 of lectures." Thus briefly does the author of Verdant Green 

 describe his hero's " matriculation." All that the university 

 cared about was that no one should waste its time or the 

 time of any master who lectured publicly by attending advanced 



