but nobody paid any attention to it: then the
Respondent read his first Dogma, and the first Opponent produced an
argument against it, in Latin. After this there were repeated replies
and rejoinders, all in viva voce Latin, the Moderator sometimes
interposing a remark in Latin. When he considered that one argument
was disposed of, he called for another by the words "Probes aliter."
The arguments were sometimes shaped with considerable ingenuity, and
required a clear head in the Respondent. When all was finished, the
Moderator made a complimentary remark to the Respondent and one to the
first Opponent (I forget whether to the second and third). In my
Respondency of 1822, November 6, the compliment was, "Quaestiones tuas
summo ingenio et acumine defendisti, et in rebus mathematicis
scientiam plane mirabilem ostendisti." In an Opponency (I forget
when) the compliment was, "Magno ingenio argumenta tua et construxisti
et defendisti."

The Acts of the high men excited much interest among the students. At
my Acts the room was crowded with undergraduates.

I imagine that, at a time somewhat distant, the maintenance of the
Acts was the only regulation by which the University acted on the
studies of the place. When the Acts had been properly kept, license
was given to the Father of the College to present the undergraduate to
the Vice-Chancellor, who then solemnly admitted him "ad respondendum
Quaestioni." There is no appearance of collective examination before
this presentation: what the "Quaestio" might be, I do not know. Still
the undergraduate was not B.A. The Quaestio however was finished and
approved before the day of a certain Congregation, and then the
undergraduate was declared to be "actualiter in artibus Baccalaureum."

Probably these regulations were found to be insufficient for the
control of education, and the January examination was instituted. I
conjecture this to have been at or shortly before the date of the
earliest Triposes recorded in the Cambridge Calendar, 1748.

The increasing importance of the January examination naturally
diminished the value of the Acts in the eyes of the undergraduates;
and, a few years after my M.A. degree, it was found that the Opponents
met, not for the purpose of concealing their arguments from the
Respondent, but for the purpose of revealing them to him. This led to
the entire suppression of the system. The most active man in this
suppression was Mr Whewell: its date must hav