As to the nature of the work done, it is aptly expressed in the Oxford term, "reading." The aim is not merely to acquire facts. From week to week the tutor is apt to meet his pupils, and especially the less forward ones, in familiar conversation, often over a cup of tea and a cigarette. He listens to the report of what the pupil has lately been reading, asks questions to see how thoroughly he has comprehended it, and advises him as to what to read next. When there are several pupils present, the conference becomes general, and thus of greater advantage to all. In the discussions that arise, opposing views are balanced, phrases are struck out and fixed in mind, and the sum of the pupil's knowledge is given order and consistency. The best tutors consciously aim at such a result, for it makes all the difference between a brilliant and a dull examination paper, and the examiners highly value this difference. The staple of tutorial instruction is lectures. In the old days the colleges were mutually exclusive units, each doing the entire work of instruction for its pupils. This arrangement was obviously wasteful, in that it presupposed a complete and adequate teaching force in each of the twenty colleges. Latterly, a system of "intercollegiate lectures" has been devised, under which a tutor lectures only on his best subjects and welcomes pupils from other colleges. These intercollegiate tutorial lectures are quite like lecture courses at an American college, except that they are not used as a means of police regulation. Attendance is not compulsory, and there are no examinations. A man issues from the walls of his college for booty, and comes back with what he thinks he can profit by. The importance of the university examinations is thus proportionate to their rarity. The examiners are chosen from the best available members of the teaching force of the university; they are paid a very considerable salary, and the term of service is of considerable length. The preparation for the examination, at least as regards honor men, has a significance impossible under our system. Matters of fact are regarded mainly as determining whether a man shall or shall not get his degree; the class he receives--there are four classes--depends on his grasp of facts and upon the aptitude of his way of writing. No man can get either a first or a second class whose knowledge has not been assimilated into his vitals, and who has not attained in some considerable degree the art of expression in language.