lation to a university; the metaphor from
'plucking' a bird is an obvious one, and may be compared to the German
use of 'rupfen'.]

[Footnote 5: The old principle is that no one should be presented except
by a member of the University who has a degree as high or higher than
that sought; this is unfortunately neglected in our own days, when an
ordinary M.A., merely because he is a professor, is appointed by statute
to present for the degree of D.Litt. or D.Sc.]

[Footnote 6: This delightful piece of English conservatism was only
removed from the statutes in 1827. It refers to the foundation of a
university at Stamford in 1334 by the northern scholars who conceived
themselves to have been ill-treated at Oxford; the attempt was crushed
at once, but only by the exercise of royal authority.]

CHAPTER II

THE MEANING OF THE DEGREE CEREMONY

[Sidenote: The Oath of the M.A.]

For the last 500 years certainly, for nearly 200 longer probably, the
candidate presented for 'inception' in the Faculty of Arts (i.e. for the
M.A. degree) has sworn that he will observe the 'statutes, privileges,
customs and liberties' of his university.[7] It is difficult to know
what the average man now means when he hurriedly says 'Do fidem' after
the Junior Proctor's charge; but there is no doubt that when the form of
words was first used, it meant much. The candidate was being admitted
into a society which was maintaining a constant struggle against
encroachments, religious or secular, from without, and against unruly
tendencies within. And this struggle gave to the University a vivid
consciousness of its unity, which in these days of peace and quiet can
hardly be conceived.

[Sidenote: What is a University?]

The essential idea of a university is a distinctly mediaeval one; the
Middle Ages were above all things gifted with a genius for organization,
and men were regarded, and regarded themselves, rather as members of a
community than as individuals. The student in classical times had been
free to hear what lectures he pleased, where he pleased, and on what
subjects he pleased, and he had no fixed and definite relations with his
fellow students. There is little or no trace of regular courses of
study, still less of self-governing bodies of students, in the
'universities' of Alexandria or Athens.

But with the revival of interest in learning in the eleventh and twelfth
centuries, the real formation of universities begins. The studen