seemed
to be the common fate of all corporations. They had to a certain extent
ceased to be seats of learning. At Oxford the limitations imposed upon
colleges by statute or custom in elections to fellowships and
scholarships ensured the mediocrity of the teachers and gave the
preference to mediocrities among the students. Where emoluments were not
so restricted they were generally awarded by interest rather than by
merit; and it was even the case that a scholarship at Winchester,
carrying with it the right to a fellowship at New College, was often
promised to an infant only a few days old. The Oxford examination system
had not been reformed since the time of Laud, and the degree
examinations had degenerated into mere formalities until the university
in 1800 adopted a new examination statute, mainly under the influence of
Dr. Eveleigh, provost of Oriel. The new statute, which came into
operation in 1802, granted honours to the better students of each year.
The number of candidates to whom honours were granted, at first very
small, rapidly increased till in 1837 about 130 received honours in a
single year. The attention which the examination system received from
the hebdomadal board, so often accused of sluggishness, is proved by the
frequent changes in the regulations, which among other things
differentiated between honours in "Literae Humaniores" and in mathematics
in 1807, and separated the honours and pass examinations in 1830. The
same desire to encourage meritorious students showed itself in the
institution of competitive examinations for fellowships, in which Oriel
led the way. It was followed in 1817 by Balliol, which in 1827 threw
open its scholarships as well. It was not, however, till the reign of
Queen Victoria that the college statutes as a whole were so modified as
to make open competition possible in more than a very few instances.

Cambridge suffered less than Oxford from restrictions as to the choice
of fellows. In fact the majority of the fellowships, more especially of
those which carried with them a vote in the government of the colleges,
were, so far as the statutes went, open to all comers. Though the course
of study was still nominally regulated by statutes dating from the Tudor
period, which it would often have been ludicrous to enforce, an
effective stimulus was given to mathematical studies by the mathematical
tripos, which had existed from the middle of the eighteenth century,
and to which in 1