The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-03-03

at i llillG IS ilUl lUHE III dCCuIllu eii .
 a handsome competence. Of couree, in
 the collegiate system of an English uni
 ver6ity there Is no limitation, except
 the length of the undergraduates, or his
 fathers, pocketbook, or the will of the
 coach himself, upon the selection of a
 trainer. A Trinity or Peterhouse un- dergraduate may go to Routh, of St.
 Johns, if he chooses, provided Routh considers him q subject not likely to damal1e his reputation by taking a low
 place. In addition to this there is much
 to be done when the undergraduate Is down" during long vacations, with or
 without the help of subsidiary coaches.
 And lastly, the candidate will be care
 fully, if net anxiously, watched by q
 college tutor, who sees in him one of
 several personihed chances of distinc-
 tion for his college.
 Tn the spring of each year. then "the
 field' for this great event, after three, l four or five years of arduous training ON 1.-the spot, not to mention the previous
 years of schooboy preparation, are
 summoned to the schools" for exam nation Some fourscore or fivescore young men between the ages of twenty
 and twenty-four who have survived the
 preliminary ordeals and are judged mathematically sound by their trainers get together in the great examination room. The horror of that succession of papers lasts for more than a week. The
 questions are supposed to include a cer-
 tain number on book work" or matter
 which only tests the candidates ac-
 quaintance with the subjects as ex-
 pounded in text books; but the crucial
 tests are the problems. These prob-
 lems have been excogitated and gloated
 over for their diabolical difficulties by
 the 'moderatore'' of the tripos during
 the preceding twelyemonth, all other
 dons and persons of whatsoever degree
 having been, of course, carefully ex- cluded from any inkling of their nature.
 No candidate who has the slightest hope
 of being a wrangler at all can afford the time to think about mere book work.
 Your tripos man must be so familiar with this sort of thing as to be able to write down answers to book work questions as fact as his pen will travel; then he may assault his problems with at least a gleam of hope in his heart. Even so, it very seldom happens that candidate manages to write down some- thing by way of answer. to every ques- tion in a paper before the expiration of the three hours allowed him. In 1865 the Hon. J. w. Strut, of Trinity, was observed to leave the examination room on several occasions before the time limit was reached and the phenomenon was regarded as ominous, for Strutt, of Trinity, had been reckoned promising candidate, and his early retirement was interpreted to mean, necessarily, des- l pair. When it was whispered that | strut of Trinity, had actually answer ed in some fashion every question in 1 every paper, the story was at first ridi- culed, and then attributed to the secret | help of the Evil One, and no one was surprised when Strut was posted as [ the Senior Wrangler of that year, He | has since becCme more widely celebrated | as Lord Rayleigh.
 It is not to be wondered at that | Senior Wrangler is usually afflicted with the malady colloquially called swell head" Among the more or less funny to this point is one which tells how the Senior Wranger of the year going to London, and graciously attend ing an operatic performance at Covent Garden, as he hoped, incognito, was disturbed, shortly after he had taken his seat in the stalls, by loud burst of cheering which shook the house from floor to ceiling. Remarking to his neighbor, They've found me out he rose and bowed to the four points of the and only then discovered that the Princess of Wales, at that time re- gently married, was taking her place in the royal box, also lowing. Sometimes the head, or the nerves, of a Senior Wrangler are affected otherwise, and cases of death or temporary insanity among the glorious brotherhood are not entirely unknown.
 But the most remarkable fact in con- 1ection with the history of the famous .ripos is the small number of Senior that have attained high anne in later years Going backward, ,nly Lord Rayleigh, already mentioneds Cayley, the famous professor of mathe- natics; Lord Kelvin, (Slr William and Stokes, formerly presi- lent of the Royal Society, out of all the Senior Wranglers in the last sixty-six 5ears, have attained what might be ,alled worldwide celebrity. It is mo- orious that to find great names on the ripos list one must look through the punch from the second wrangler to the enth or twelfth. Thus, In 1854, when ,outh, afterward the famous coach, was senior, Clark Maxwell was second. Tait nd Steele were respectively Senior and econd in 1852, and afterward became Go, ioi ir,t | f Particle" of which by far the more rilliant share was commonly attributed 0 steele. The famous Colenso, after yard the unorthodox Bishop of Natal, - vas second in 1856. De Morgan, one f the greatest names in the history of ] he century's progress in pure mathe- s latics, wac fourth wranger in 1927, and s ylvester, who shared with Stokes until l