From the earliest times the proctors had the power of questioning a candidate at the end of a disputation, and probably all candidates for a degree attended the public schools on certain days to give an opportunity to the proctors (or any master who liked to take part in the examination) to examine them[37], though the opportunity was not always used. Such examinations were conducted in Latin, and originally different candidates attended on different days. Soon after 1710[38] the moderators or proctors began the custom of summoning on one day in January all candidates whom they proposed to question, and conducting the examination in English and in public: the examination did not last more than one day, and was partly on philosophy and partly on mathematics. It was from this examination that the Mathematical Tripos developed. This introduction of a regular oral examination seems to have been mainly due to the fact that when, in 1710, George I gave the Ely library to the University, it was decided to assign for its reception the old senate-house--now the catalogue room in the library--and to build a new room for the meetings of the senate. Pending the building of the new senate-house the books were stored in the Schools, which thus were rendered unavailable for keeping acts. In consequence of this, considerable difficulty was found in arranging for all the candidates to keep the full number of statutable exercises, and obtaining opportunities to compare them one with another: hence the introduction or extension of a supplementary oral examination. The advantages of this examination as providing a ready means of testing the knowledge and abilities of the candidates were so patent that it was retained when the necessity for some system of the kind had passed away, and finally it became systematized into an organized test to which all questionists were subjected. In 1731 the University raised the joint stipend of the moderators to £60 "in consideration of their additional trouble in the Lent Term." This would seem to indicate that the senate-house examination had then taken formal shape, and perhaps that a definite scheme for its conduct had become customary.