-honoured name of the 'Masters of
the Schools' for those who conduct this examination (though there are
now six and not four, as in the thirteenth century), and candidates who
pass are still said as of old to have 'responded in Parviso'.[18]

In the fifteenth century a man had to be up at least a year before he
entered for this examination, in the sixteenth century he could not do
so before his ninth term, i.e. only a little more than a year before he
took his B.A. The examination is now generally taken before coming into
residence, and the most patriotic Oxford man would hardly apply to it
the enthusiastic praises of the seventeenth-century Vice-Chancellor
(1601) who called it 'gloriosum illud et laudabile in parviso certamen,
quo antiquitus inclaruit nostra Academia'.

[Sidenote: Other examinations.]

At the end of four years, as has been said, a man 'determined', i.e.
performed the disputations and other requirements for the degree of
B.A., and after this ceremony there were more 'lectures and disputings'
to be performed in the additional three years' residence required for a
Master's degree. Nothing, however, is said of definite examinations as
to the intellectual fitness of candidates for the M.A. Hearne (early in
the eighteenth century) quotes from an old book, that the candidate
'must submit himself privately to the examination of everyone of that
degree, whereunto he desireth to be admitted'. But the terror of such a
multiplied test was no doubt greatly softened by the fact that what is
everybody's business is nobody's business.

[Sidenote: (4) Character.]

The stress laid on the course followed rather than on the final
examination brings out the great idea underlying the old degree; it
sought its qualifications on all sides of a man's life, and not simply
in his power to get up and reproduce knowledge. Hence it is provided
that M.A.s should admit to 'Determination' (i.e. to the B.A.) only those
who are 'fit in knowledge and character'; 'if any question arises on
other points, e.g. as to age, stature, or other outward qualifications
(_corporum circumstantiis_)', it is reserved for the majority of the
Regents. How minute was the inquiry into character can be seen in the
case of a certain Robert Smith (of Magdalen) in 1582, who was refused
his B.A., because he had brought scandalous charges against the fellows
of his College, had called an M.A. 'to his face "arrant knave", had been
at a disputation in the Div