llege Privilege.]

One curious development of the old system of 'graces' survived in one of
the most prominent of Oxford colleges almost till within living
memory.[17] William of Wykeham had ordained that his students should
perform the whole of the University requirements, and not avail
themselves of dispensations. When the granting of these became so
frequent that they were looked upon as the essential part of the system,
the idea grew up that New College men were to be exempt from the
ordinary tests of the University. Hence a Wykehamist took his degree
with no examination but that of his own college, both under the Laudian
Statute and after the great statute of 1800, which set up the modern
system of examinations. What the founder had intended as an
encouragement for industry was made by his degenerate disciples an
excuse for idleness.

[Sidenote: (3) Examinations.]

So far only the qualifications of residence and attendance on lectures
have been spoken of. The great test of our own times, the examination,
has not even been referred to. And it must certainly be admitted that
the terrors of the modern written examinations were unknown in the old
universities; such testing as took place was always viva voce. That the
tests were serious, in theory at any rate, may be fairly inferred from
the frequent statutes at Paris against bribing examiners, and from the
provision at Bologna that at this 'rigorous and tremendous examination',
the examiner should treat the examinee 'as his own son'. Robert de
Sorbonne, the founder of the famous college at Paris, has even left a
sermon in which an elaborate comparison is drawn between university
examinations and the Last Judgement; it need hardly be said that the
moral of the sermon is the greater severity of the heavenly test as
compared with the earthly; if a man neglects his prescribed book, he
will be rejected once, but if he neglect 'the book of conscience, he
will be rejected for ever'. Such a comparison was not likely to have
been made, had not the earthly ordeal possessed terrors at least as
great as those that mark its modern successors.

[Sidenote: Responsions.]

It may be added at once, however, that we hear very little about
examinations in old Oxford; but still there were some. Then as now the
first examination was Responsions, a name which has survived for at
least 500 years, whatever changes there have been in its meaning. The
University also still retains the time