But, after all, the majority of sightseers are not given to historical reflections. What most people want is something that ’palpitates with actuality;’ they want to see the machine working. They are temporarily happy if they can see a Proctor in his robes of office, and rise to the enthusiasm of ’never having had such a delightful day’ if the Proctor happens to ’proctorise’ an undergraduate within the ken of their vision. ’It was all so _delightful_ and mediaeval, and all that kind of thing, don’t you know? Poor young man--simply for not wearing one of those horrid caps and gowns! _I_ call it a shame.’ This is the reason why a Degree Day is so wonderfully popular a ceremony. There is a sense of attractive mystery about it all--the Vice-Chancellor throned in the Theatre or Convocation House, discoursing in unintelligible scraps of Latin like the refrain of a song, and the Proctors doing their quarter-deck walk--although the dignity of the function be rather marred by the undergraduates who jostle and giggle in the background forgetting that they are assisting at a ceremony which is, after all, one of the University’s reasons of existence. It is the same kind of curiosity which causes the lecturer to become suddenly conscious that he is being watched with intense interest--an interest to which he is altogether unaccustomed--by ’only a face at the window’ of his lecture-room, to his own confusion and the undisguised amusement of his audience. [Illustration: _IN CONVOCATION: CONFERRING A DEGREE. Drawn by Ernest Stamp._] Such are sightseers: yet every man to his taste. When Samuel Pepys came over from Abingdon to see the sights of the University town, it is gratifying and rather surprising to learn that what most impressed him was the small price paid for creature comforts: ’Oxford mighty fine place,’ such is the diarist’s reflection, ’and _cheap entertainment_.’ IV--OF EXAMINATIONS ’Thinketh one made them in a fit of the blues.’ _Q_