The first actual College was Peterhouse, founded by Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely, in 1284, and was of the nature of an experiment, the success of which it took a whole generation to establish. Once proved, a host of imitators appeared; and the following generation saw no fewer than seven similar foundations, Michaelhouse and King's Hall (the germs of Trinity College), Clare, Pembroke, Gonville, Trinity Hall, and Corpus Christi College. Then came a break of a century, followed by another outburst of zeal, which in the next hundred years produced yet another seven: King's, Queens', St. Catharine's, Jesus, Christ's, St. John's, and Magdalene. The last four of these were earlier religious and scholastic foundations remodelled; and a like process during the half century succeeding the Reformation has given us the Colleges of Trinity, Caius, Emmanuel, and Sidney. Not till the nineteenth century was the list added to by the appearance of Downing. The original idea in all these foundations was to provide, not so much for the students as for the masters who taught them. To these it was an immense advantage to be able to dwell together in small groups and in quiet quarters, where they could engage in research and prepare their lectures, shut away from the turmoil of the seething crowd of Town and Gown in the streets. And it speedily appeared that if the seclusion of a College was helpful to the teacher it was even more helpful to the taught. For the test applied to students by the University before conferring upon them a Degree was by public disputations in the schools, each candidate having to support or oppose some literary or scientific thesis. The memory of these wordy "opponencies" is still preserved in the denomination of "Wrangler" bestowed on the candidates who obtain a First Class in the Mathematical Examination for an "Honour" Degree, and by every examination through which such a Degree can be obtained being called a "Tripos,"[4] from the three-legged stool which played a notable part in those old ordeals. The test demanded steadiness of nerve and readiness of wit, as well as mere knowledge; and, in all these, the Scholar of a College, well catered and cared for, was far better equipped than his lawless, and often all but foodless, non-Collegiate competitor. [Footnote 4: Till the nineteenth century was well advanced the Mathematical Tripos was the only avenue to the attainment of "Honours" at Cambridge; so that even such a distinguished scholar as Lord Macaulay was debarred from them by his inability to pass that examination, and had to content himself with the lower status of an "Ordinary" or "Poll" Degree (so called from the Greek [Greek: polloi] = many, as being the refuge of the common herd of candidates). Triposes in many other branches of knowledge, classical, scientific, legal, historical, and linguistic, have since been added.]