The institution of breakfast, whatever happened to British worth, was certainly helped forward by the tea, rolls, and toast which slowly ousted ale. Lectures and disputations in private or in the Schools followed breakfast. The latter possibly encouraged inter-collegiate sports, since Exeter and Christ Church on one occasion resolved their disputation into a fight which attracted Masters of Arts. And well it might; for otherwise they were in danger of dining like fighting cocks and amusing themselves like doves: the sixteenth-century fellows of Corpus, for example, were permitted no games but ball in the college garden. Examinations are still a select and expensive form of amusement. The stories told of celebrated men and their _viva voce_ conflicts with examiners, and the like, have inspired more than one to go into the Schools in a mood of smiling irreverence. The fame resulting, it is true, has to be propagated by much anecdote from the lips of the hero himself. In the Middle Ages the humour was of a lustier kind. The parsley crown went, or should have gone, to the most brazen giver and taker of learned wit. In Anthony à Wood’s day, one William George, “cynical and hirsute in his behaviour,” was a noted sophister and disputant, and improved his purse by preparing the exercises of the dull or lazy for public recitation. The nature of these examinations, in their dull old age, has been recorded by one who took part:-- “Two boys, or men, as they call themselves, agree to _do generals_ together. The first stage in this mighty work is to produce arguments. These are always handed down from generation to generation, on long slips of paper, and consist of foolish syllogisms on foolish subjects. The next step is to go for a _liceat_ to one of the petty officers, called the Regent Master of the Schools, who subscribes his name to the questions, and receives sixpence as his fee. When the important day arrives, the two doubty disputants go into a large dusty room, full of dirt and cobwebs, with walls and wainscot decorated with the names of former disputants, who, to divert the tedious hours, cut out their names with their penknives or wrote verses with a pencil. Here they sit in mean desks, opposite to each other, from one till three. Not once in a hundred times does any officer enter; and if he does, he hears one syllogism or two, and then makes a bow, and departs, as he came and remained, in solemn silence. The disputants then return to the amusement of cutting the desks, carving their names, or reading Sterne’s _Sentimental Journey_, or some other edifying novel.”