“Mathematical wind!” exclaimed the other, “how so, Doctor?” “Why you see it has extracted a great many roots!” A Johnian one day eating apple-pie by the side of a Johnian fellow, an inveterate punster, he facetiously observed,
“HE WAS RAISING APPLE-PIE TO THE Tth POWER:”
Another fellow walking down the hall, after dinner, and slipping some distance on smooth flags, looked over his shoulder and observed to one following him—”An inclined plane.”
Another Cantab, when a student of Bene’t, now rector of H——, Suffolk, sung his song of “divine Mathesis:”—
Let mathematicians and geometricians
Talk of circles’ and triangles’ charms,
The figure I prize is a girl with bright eyes,
And the circle that’s formed by her arms.
THE CLASSICAL TRIPOS AND THE WOODEN WEDGE.
This class of Cambridge honours, for which none can become candidates but those who have attained mathematical distinction, was instituted by a Grace of the Senate, in 1822. As its title implies, it is divided into three classes. The first examination took place in 1824, when the Cantabs were saved the labour of gestation, by the last man in the third class being named Wedgewood, which was transposed by some wag to wooden wedge—and by that soubriquet, equivalent to the wooden spoon, all men so circumstanced are now designated in the colloquial phraseology of the University. It is but justice to Mr. W. to add, however, that he also attained the high mathematical distinction of eighth wrangler of his year. By the same decree of the Senate
A PREVIOUS EXAMINATION
Was established at Cambridge (answering to the Oxford “Little-go,”) by which all students are required to undergo an examination in Classics and Divinity, in the Lent term of the second year of their residence. The successful candidates are divided into two classes only: but there is always a select few who are allowed to pass, after an extra trial of skill: these are lumped at the end, and have been designated “Elegant Extracts.” Some wag furnished Jackson’s Oxford Journal with this