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NA TURE 



iDec. 1 6, 1886 



that should receive a fair amount of general support. Even 

 when the subjects were restricted, as they had been in the 

 twenty-five years from 1S4S-72, it was sufficiently difficult 

 to include in one list all the various classes of candi- 

 dates — those who may be described as professed mathe- 

 maticians, who intended to devote themselves to mathe- 

 matics after their degree as investigators or teachers ; 

 those who adopted mathematics as their subject of study 

 on account of its unrivalled mental training, and sub- 

 ordinated their whole reading to the single object of 

 obtaining the highest place their abilities would enable 

 them to reach ; and those who, without any hope of ob- 

 taining a good place in the list, desired, nevertheless, to 

 graduate in the Tripos, on account of the high position 

 held by mathematics among the branches of a liberal 

 education. But, when the range of subjects was extended, 

 there was the further dilemma : if there was to be a single 

 order of merit, all the questions must be submitted to all 

 the candidates ; but, if a candidate was to be at liberty 

 to attempt all the questions, it appeared that, under any 

 scheme that could be devised, the best candidates would 

 find it more to their advantage to read the elementary 

 portions of all the higher subjects than the higher portions 

 of a few. If the questions were to be alternative, how 

 could the order of merit be retained ? How was it pos- 

 sible to compare one student's elliptic functions with 

 another's elastic solids ? was a question often asked. 



It was keenly felt in the University that subjects like 

 heat, electricity, and magnetism could not with propriety 

 be omitted from the course systematically studied by can- 

 didates for mathematical honours. On the other hand, 

 it was universally admitted that, by the extension of the 

 range of subjects, the severe strain of the competition 

 had been intensified to an injurious extent ; and not only 

 had the addition of the new subjects aggravated the evils 

 arising from excessive competition, but they had even 

 caused a deterioration in the quality of the work of many 

 of the students, who were led, in the hope of gaining 

 higher places, to attempt matter really beyond their grasp. 

 The opinion was expressed on the syndicate that the 

 only escape from the dilemma was by abandoning the 

 order of merit. The majority, however, preferred to 

 attempt some other remedy without interfering with the 

 final form of the Tripos list, which had been of such im- 

 mense service to the University in the past, and was 

 connected with so many valued associations. They 

 therefore proposed, as the only method by which the 

 pressure on the mathematical candidates could be re- 

 lieved, to omit a varying portion of the higher subjects of 

 examination in each year. 



The Report of the syndicate was presented to the 

 Senate on March 29, 1878. They recommended that the 

 nine days of the examinations should be divided into 

 )hree groups of three days each, called Parts I., II., and 

 III. Part I. was to be the s.ime as the first three days in the 

 schemes that came into operation in iS4Sand 1873. Part 1 1, 

 was to be conducted according to a schedule of subjects 

 considerably more restricted than the unwritten schedule 

 that ruled the five days from 1S48 to 1872. It included 

 the more elementary portions of most of the ordinary 

 subjects, such as differential equations, hydrostatics, rigid 

 dynamics, optics, spherical astronomy, &c, but excluded 

 calculus of variations, thermodynamics, physical optics, 

 &c. It was proposed to move forward the time of exam- 

 ination in these first two parts, from January to the 

 previous June, i.e. two years and nine months from the 

 time of coming into residence of the students. After the 

 examination in Parts I. and II. a list of the candidates 

 was to be published, arranged in three classes as before, 

 the senior and junior optimes being placed in order of 

 merit, and the wranglers in alphabetical order. Only the 

 wranglers were to be admitted to Part III., which was to 

 take place at the old time in the following January. A 

 final list was then to be issued in which the wranglers 



were to be placed in order of merit, the marks obtained 

 by them in all three parts being added together. The 

 most important part of the scheme was the schedule of 

 subjects for Part III. It contained all the subjects which 

 were included in the schedule of the five days of the then 

 existing examination (for the syndicate had decided that 

 they would neither propose the addition of any new sub- 

 jects nor the omission of any that had been already 

 included), divided into three groups. A, B, C. It was re- 

 commended that questions from the subjects in group A 

 should be set every year, and that questions from groups 

 B and C should be set in alternate years. It was thus 

 proposed to establish, as it were, a " rotation of subjects.'' 

 This scheme was voted upon by the .Senate on May 13, 

 1878, when all its essential features were rejected. The 

 division of the examination into three parts, of which the 

 first two should take place in June and the third in the 

 following January, was agreed to, as also was the limita- 

 tion of Part III. to wranglers ; but the carrying over the 

 marks of the wranglers from June to January and the 

 proposed rotation of subjects were rejected. 



It is evident that the acceptance of the scheme, even 

 by those who assented to its principle, depended largely 

 upon the manner in which the subjects were divided into 

 the three groups A, B, C. Whether a satisfactory division 

 of the subjects was possible is very doubtful ; but it is 

 certain that the grouping of the subjects proposed by the 

 syndicate was extremely unsatisfactory. 



This scheme, though it never came into operation, will 

 be memorable in the history of the Tripos as the final 

 attempt made to retain the order of merit in its old form. 

 With its rejection there passed away all hope of express- 

 ing the results of the whole examination by means of a 

 single order of merit. The scheme also deserves notice for 

 its own sake, if only on account of the influential mathe- 

 maticians who supported it. 



The syndicate then proceeded to build a new scheme 

 upon the ruins of the old. They considered that the • 

 result of the voting on the nineteen graces in which the 

 previous scheme had been submitted to the Senate 

 showed that it was the opinion of the University that the 

 examination in Part III. should be independent of the 

 preceding parts, and that no scheme would be acceptable 

 in which it was not provided that all the subjects should 

 beincluded in theexaminations of each year. They accord- 

 ingly presented a Report to the Senate in October 1878, in 

 which they proposed that in June, immediately after the 

 examination in Parts I. and II., the complete list of 

 wranglers, senior optimes, and junior optimes should be 

 issued arranged in order of merit, that Part III. should be 

 a separate examination, to which wranglers only should be 

 admissible, and that after the examination in Part III. a 

 list should be issued in which the candidates were 

 arranged in three classes, the names in each class being 

 arranged in alphabetical order. 



The schedule of subjects consisted of all the ex- 

 isting subjects divided into four groups. A, B, C, D. 

 Group A contained the pure mathematics ; Group B, 

 the astronomical subjects ; Group C, hydrodynamics, 

 sound, physical optics, elastic solids, &c. ; and Group D, 

 heat, electricity, and magnetism. In order to encourage 

 the candidates to specialise their reading, one of the 

 regulations authorised the Moderators and Examiners to 

 place in the first division a candidate who showed 

 eminent proficiency in any one group ; so that it was 

 not absolutely essential for a student, in order to be 

 placed in the first division, to extend his reading beyond 

 the subjects of a single group. 



This scheme was approved by the Senate on November 

 21, 187S, and it came into operation in 1882, the first 

 examination in Part III. taking place in 1883. 



Parts I. and II. taken together differed in no essential 

 respects from the Tripos as it had existed from 1848. 

 The five days of the scheme of 1848 were reduced to 



