ABSTRACT
The earliest universities of Christian Europe were all born in the same way: a great scholar settled in a town and attracted some students to his lectures; these disciples then stayed with him, in their turn, began teaching the young men who continued to arrive; without any forethought, the thing was done. Echoes of this ancient ceremony are still to be heard in the Cambridge examination system of today. Because the parties to the dispute used to sit on three-legged stools, the Cambridge examination is called a Tripos; moreover, in memory of the disputation, everyone who gains a first class in the Mathematical Tripos is designated a Wrangler. Lord Kelvin, when he was just plain William Thomson of Peterhouse, was easily the best mathematician of his year, and was widely tipped for the Senior Wranglership.
