On the Monday morning, a little before eight o'clock, the students, generally about a hundred, enter the Senate-House, preceded by a master of arts, who on this occasion is styled the father of the College to which he belongs. On two pillars at the entrance of the Senate-House are hung the classes and a paper denoting the hours of examination of those who are thought most competent to contend for honours. Immediately after the University clock has struck eight, the names are called over, and the absentees, being marked, are subject to certain fines. The classes to be examined are called out, and proceed to their appointed tables, where they find pens, ink, and paper provided in great abundance. In this manner, with the utmost order and regularity, two-thirds of the young men are set to work within less than five minutes after the clock has struck eight. There are three chief tables, at which six examiners preside. At the first, the senior moderator of the present year and the junior moderator of the preceding year. At the second, the junior moderator of the present, and the senior moderator of the preceding year. At the third, two moderators of the year previous to the two last, or two examiners appointed by the Senate. The two first tables are chiefly allotted to the six first classes; the third, or largest, to the οἱ πολλοί. The young men hear the propositions or questions delivered by the examiners; they instantly apply themselves; demonstrate, prove, work out and write down, fairly and legibly (otherwise their labour is of little avail) the answers required. All is silence; nothing heard save the voice of the examiners; or the gentle request of some one, who may wish a repetition of the enunciation. It requires every person to use the utmost dispatch; for as soon as ever the examiners perceive anyone to have finished his paper and subscribed his name to it another question is immediately given.... The examiners are not seated, but keep moving round the tables, both to judge how matters proceed and to deliver their questions at proper intervals. The examination, which embraces arithmetic, algebra, fluxions, the doctrine of infinitesimals and increments, geometry, trigonometry, mechanics, hydrostatics, optics, and astronomy, in all their various gradations, is varied according to circumstances: no one can anticipate a question, for in the course of five minutes he may be dragged from Euclid to Newton, from the humble arithmetic of Bonnycastle to the abstruse analytics of Waring. While this examination is proceeding at the three tables between the hours of eight and nine, printed problems are delivered to each person of the first and second classes; these he takes with him to any window he pleases, where there are pens, ink, and paper prepared for his operations.