essimum augurium,_
and Examinations have a very respectable antiquity. Indeed no
University to my knowledge has ever been able in the long run to
do without them: and although certain Colleges--King's College
here, and New College at Oxford--for long persevered in the
attempt, the result was not altogether happy, and in the end they
have consigned with custom.

Of course Universities have experimented with the _process._ Let
me give you two or three ancient examples, which may help you to
see (to vary Wordsworth) that though 'the Form decays, the
function never dies.'

(1) I begin with most ancient Bologna, famous for Civil Law. At
Bologna the process of graduation--of admission to the _jus
docendi,_ 'right to teach'--consisted of two parts, the Private
Examination and the Public (_conventus_):

The private Examination was the real test of
competence, the so-called public Examination being in
practice a mere ceremony. Before admission to each of these
tests the candidate was presented by the Consiliarius of his
Nation to the Rector for permission to enter it, and swore
that he had complied with all the statutable conditions, that
he would give no more than the statutable fees or
entertainments to the Rector himself, the Doctor, or his
fellow-students, and that he would obey the Rector. Within a
period of eight days before the Examination the candidate
was presented by 'his own' Doctor or by some other Doctor
or by two Doctors to the Archdeacon, the presenting Doctor
being required to have satisfied himself by private
examination of his presentee's fitness. Early on the morning
of the Examination, after attending a Mass of the Holy
Ghost, the candidate appeared before the assembled College
and was assigned by one of the Doctors present two passages
(_puncta_) in the Civil or Canon Law as the case might be. He
then retired to his house to study the passages, in doing which
it would appear that he had the assistance of the presenting
Doctor. Later in the day the Doctors were summoned to the
Cathedral, or some other public building, by the Archdeacon,
who presided over but took no active part in the ensuing
examination. The candidate was then introduced to the
Archdeacon and Doctors by the presenting Doctor or Promotor
as he was styled. The Prior of the College then administered a
number of oaths in which the candidate promised respect to
that body and solemnly