The third stage was reached when the "questionist," as he was now, stood for his bachelor's degree. This was known as Determination, because the candidate had to determine questions in which his recent acquisitions in logic should have enabled him to appear to advantage. According to the rule, this function took place either on Ash Wednesday or on some day between Ash Wednesday and the following Tuesday. However important Responsions may have been in the eyes of the youthful student, they paled before the elaborate ceremonies of Determination. In all the two-and-thirty schools of School-street sat the Masters Regent in full academical attire, their desks before them, it having been enacted that the exercises should be carried out in the schools, not in private dwellings or in churches. The statutes forbade unfairness in proposing questions or in the manner of examining, but the candidate was, to some extent, forearmed in this matter, since he might, apparently, select his own judge. As a good audience was considered a primary necessity by the masters, in order that their talents might obtain the widest possible recognition, well-wishers seem to have gone so far as to drag into the schools reluctant passers-by--a nuisance of such frequent occurrence that it was forbidden by statute. An attempt was made also to prevent fees or robes being given to the masters, but the statute doubtless proved inoperative, and was afterwards repealed. Another custom, which the authorities vainly prohibited, and was plainly incongruous at the season of Lent, was the holding of feasts by bachelors on admission. Before a scholar was permitted to determine, six masters at least had to testify on oath in congregation regarding his fitness in knowledge, morals, age, stature, and personal appearance. They were bound to secrecy as to the nature of their testimony, the sufficiency of which was decided by four Regent Masters of Arts, two of the North and two of the South, eight days before Ash Wednesday. On the following Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday masters and scholars appeared before the four members of the Committee; and if the testimony had been satisfactory the scholars made oath that they had completed the necessary studies, and were "admitted" to determine. Determination itself was largely a show, and had nothing to do with the attainment of the degree, of which it was rather the outward and visible sign. If the student failed to acquit himself with distinction, the only penalty to which he exposed himself was the censure or ridicule of friends and foes. Discomfiture was extremely probable, as the affair was intellectual game, in which either the master laid himself out to pose the scholar, or a brace of scholars argued (or, as the phrase then ran, "disputed") by turns, under the supervision and correction of the master.