VIII UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL 229 



to know ; and outraged Science takes her revenge. 

 They do pass, and they don't know. I have passed 

 sundry examinations in my time, not without 

 credit, and I confess I am ashamed to think how 

 very little real knowledge underlay the torrent of 

 stuff which I was able to pour out on 'paper. In 

 fact, that which examination, as ordinarily con- 

 ducted, tests, is simply a man's power of work 

 under stimulus, and his capacity for rapidly and 

 clearly producing that which, for the time, he has 

 got into his mind. Now, these faculties are by no 

 means to be despised. They are of great value in 

 practical life, and are the making of many an 

 advocate, and of many a so-called statesman. But 

 in the pursuit of truth, scientific or other, they 

 count for very little, unless they are supplemented 

 by that long-continued, patient " intending of the 

 mind," as Newton phrased it, which makes very 

 little show in Examinations. I imagine that an 

 Examiner who knows his students personally, must 

 not unfrequently have found himself in the posi- 

 tion of finding A's paper better than B's, though 

 his own judgment tells him, quite clearly, that B 

 is the man who has the larger share of genuine 

 capacity. 



Again, there is a fallacy about Examiners. It 

 is commonly supposed that any one who knows a 

 subject is competent to teach it; and no one seems 

 to doubt that any one who knows a subject is 

 competent to examine in it. I believe both these 



