ABSTRACT
From the answers of Heads and Presidents, Aug. 9, 1675, to the enquiries sent by Monmouth the Chancellor on the King's command, it appears that it was then possible to receive a degree after putting in ‘cautions for the performance’ of the statutable exercises, and then forfeiting the payment, and that this was not seldom done at Cambridge1
One very curious thing which we must notice is, that the ‘acts’ in the ‘Schools’ as distinct from the examination in the senate-house were by no means exclusively mathematical In Puritan times2 the mathematics were, comparatively speaking, neglected at Cambridge (though Ptolemy, Apollonius’ Conics and Euclid were generally read), and in the latter half of the following century, after the mathematical revivals about 1645 and 1708, metaphysical and moral questions began to monopolize the ‘Schools’
The year 1680 brought one of the most important innovations, viz., the appointment of moderators. Up to that time the proctors had presided in the sophs’ schools ex officio. Thus provision was made that the disputations should be conducted by persons chosen especially for their scientific qualifications and judgment. The advantage of the new office seems to have been at once recognised, for in 1684 the moderators were appointed to take a prominent part in the examination of those who had passed through their disputations’.
