May is, 1SS3.' 



SCIENCE. 



413 



beticallj', and not, as heretofore, iu the order 

 of merit. 



Under the old S3"stem, the tripos examina- 

 tion began geuerallj- on the first Monda}' in 

 Jannarj-. Two papers were set on eacli of the 

 first four days of that week ; then followed an 

 interval of ten days, during which the work 

 of the candidates was examined, and a list of 

 those who had " acquitted themselves so as 

 to deserve mathematical honors" published; 

 finally, all such persons, but no others, were 

 admitted to the rest of the examination, which 

 consisted of a five-days' further test in the 

 more difficult parts of mathematics and natural 

 philosophj'. 



The names of all the candidates previouslj' 

 declared to be deserving of honors were then 

 arranged in the order of merit, determined by 

 the work of all the nine daj's, "into three 

 classes of wranglers, senior optimes, and junior 

 optimes ; " and this list, which, of late years, 

 generally contained about a hundred names, 

 was then published in the Senate House. 



The regulations ^ for the mathematical tripos 

 examination directed that in no book-work 

 paper of the first six daj's should be contained 

 more questions than well-prepared students 

 might be expected to answer within the time 

 allowed for the paper ; but they sanctioned the 

 Introduction, in all the subjects, of "examples 

 and questions, b}' way of illustration or ex- 

 planation, arising directly out of the proposi- 

 tions themselves." This last rule enabled the 

 moderators and examiners to attach a rider to 

 almost everj- question, and thus to increase 

 the length of the papers far bej'ond what even 

 the ablest man could write out properlj' in the 

 time allowed. 



An examination of the papers of the last 

 ten years shows, that, in the fifteen papers 

 devoted each 3'ear exclusivelj^ to book-work, 

 most of the questions were such as a very well 

 read man might ha-\'e met with in the course of 

 his studies ; but that a verj- large jDroportion 

 of the riders must have been new to all the 

 candidates, and of such a nature as to test 

 very effectuallj' the power to do new work 

 which the men had gained. 



The great honor which has been alwa3-s at- 

 tached to tlie senior wranglership has given 

 rise to the sharpest rivalry for first place ; and 

 this rivalry has extended to the tutors as well 

 as to the candidates themselves. With the 

 names of the six or eight men who stand high- 

 est in the list of wranglers, some of the daily 

 papers have been in the habit of printing short 



> Cambridge university calendar for the year 1879, pp. 25-28. 



accounts of their lives, and of giving the names 

 of the teachers who jjrepared the men for the 

 examination. 



As a result of this, the most famous tutors 

 were said to refuse all students who did not 

 give promise of getting a good place in the 

 list of honors ; and those J'oung men who 

 were so fortunate as to secure the services of 

 one of the celebrated ' senior-wrangler manu- 

 facturers ' were more carefuUj- looked after and 

 trained than are the race-horses for the Derbj-. 



There has been a continual struggle between 

 the examiners and the tutors. The former 

 have attached, each j'ear, difficult and ingenious 

 riders to comparatively easy book-work ques- 

 tions ; so that in many cases the connection 

 between the two is hj no means obvious. The 

 latter have tried to send up candidates so well 

 read, and so well trained in the solution under 

 pressure of new problems, that the amount 

 accomplished should depend onlj' upon the 

 rapidity with which the student could write. 



Let a person who has not had the benefit of 

 this coaching attempt to write out one of the 

 easier tripos ' papers in a time equal to that 

 originallj' allowed for it, and, whatever he may 

 think of the wisdom of requiring a student to 

 be prepared for examination in so mauj- sub- 

 jects at one time, he must get a profound re- 

 spect for the ability, the attainments, and the 

 physical endurance , of those who get places in 

 the tripos. As far as one can judge from such 

 accounts of the lives of higher wranglers as 

 appear in the newspapers, the more ambitious 

 students have, of late j-ears, come up to the 

 university with a good knowledge of analj-tic 

 geometry, differential calculus, and mechanics. 

 They have then spent nearlj' three j'ears — 

 studying in vacation as well as in term-time 

 — in a special preparation for the examination 

 for honors, ancl finallj- have been subjected to 

 the terrible strain of writing the nine-days' 

 papers. One cannot wonder that manj' stu- 

 dents broke down in the course of prepa- 

 ration, and that manj' others succeeded in 

 getting high rank at the price of lasting ill 

 health. 



Mr. Todhunter, in his 'Conflict of studies,' 

 was one of the first to raise his voice against 

 the system ; but he was soon joined by others, 

 who argued that the test of the students' pow- 

 ers would be quite as effective, and the evil 

 results of the preparation fewer, if there were 

 an interval of several months between the 

 examinations in the more elementarj^ subjects 



1 The tripos papers for each year make a quarto pamphlet, 

 which may he had of Measra. George Bell & Sons, Cambridge 

 warehouse, 17 Paternoster Row, London. Price two shillings- 



