Constitution and University Administration
The University is a corporate body comprising all the colleges. A qualifying examination is required for entry to the University, but the colleges may have special regulations for admission. The collegiate student is required to reside in college, may not be absent after 10 p.m. without permission, must wear the gown, and must dine in hall five days a week. The bachelor’s degree comprises three years of study, each divided into three terms (Michaelmas, Lent, Easter and Summer). To obtain the degree, a double examination is required: 1) a general examination (classics, mathematics, a portion of English history); 2) a special examination (choice of subjects grouped by discipline).
Formerly, candidates were ranked in order of individual merit as wranglers, senior optimes and junior optimes; since 1919 this system has remained only for law. Each college is autonomous, with its own endowments derived from foundations, royal or private donations. It is responsible for the lodging, board and academic preparation of its fellows and students through tutors. Each college consists of buildings arranged around one or more courts. There is a large refectory hall for fellows and students, a library, a chapel, and accommodations for fellows and students; all originally derived from medieval palaces, with later modifications especially in the Renaissance. The sumptuous Senate House dates from 1722; the University Library (communis libraria universitatis) is a complex of buildings ranging from the Middle Ages to the 18th century. It contains 1,500,000 volumes, 10,000 manuscripts and 3,000 incunabula; 50,000 volumes from the Acton collection are devoted to modern history.
In the southern part of Downing Street the following institutes were established: the School of Agriculture (1910), enlarged in 1926–27; the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology (1910–15); the Psychological Laboratory (1913) and the Physiological Laboratory (1914); the Forestry School (1914); the Molteno Institute of Animal Parasitology (1921); a station for biochemical and biophysical research (1922) and the Sir William Dunn School of Biochemistry; in 1928 the new Pathological Laboratory.
Cambridge has the following learned societies: the Philosophical Society, with its Proceedings since 1821 and Transactions since 1843; the Philological Society, with its Proceedings (1872) and Transactions (1882); the Pathological Society, with its Journal of Pathology and Bacteriology.
Since 1902 the Cambridge University Press has issued the following series: Cambridge Modern History in 3 volumes and an atlas; Cambridge Medieval History, 1911, in 8 volumes; Cambridge Ancient History from 1924, in 17 volumes of which 5 are illustrated. It has also published The Cambridge History of the British Foreign Policy, 1922–23, 3 volumes; The Cambridge History of the British Empire, 1929, 3 volumes; The Cambridge History of India, 1922, 6 volumes; The Cambridge History of English Literature, 1907–16, 15 volumes. — V. Tav. XXVIII.