324 Darwinism and Other Essays. 



delusive show of knowledge can easily be pro- 

 duced, which may answer the demands of the mo- 

 ment, but which a shrewd examination will inevi- 

 tably dispel. If recitations were not allowed to 

 influence rank, and were conducted in the con- 

 versational manner here recommended, the chief 

 temptation to the employment of these wretched 

 subterfuges would be at once removed. Accuracy 

 of scholarship can never be looked for in a man 

 who refuses to grapple with obstacles himself; 

 and to translations in particular it may be ob- 

 jected that, being not always executed by com- 

 petent scholars, their interpretations of difficult 

 passages are often quite untrustworthy. Any 

 system of conducting recitation, whose tendency 

 is to banish these treacherous guides from the 

 precincts of the university, is by that circum- 

 stance alone recommended at the outset. 



The object of the triposes is to encourage mi- 

 nute and thorough scholarship. To this end, the 

 distribution of honours should be determined by 

 the results of a competitive examination held at 

 the close of the college course, in which the re- 

 quirements should be so great, and the questions 

 so searching, as to render hopeless all attempts at 

 succeeding by surreptitious means. At Oxford, 

 for instance, the final class-papers in mathematics 



