On the Art of Reading

we come to England⁠—that is, to Oxford and Cambridge, which ever had queer ways of their own⁠—we find, strange to say, for centuries no evidence at all of any kind of examination. As for competitive examinations like the defunct Mathematical and Classical Triposes here⁠—with Senior Wranglers, Wooden Spoons and what lay between⁠—of all European universities, Louvain alone used the system and may have invented it. At Louvain the candidates for the Mastership were placed in three classes, in each of which the names were arranged in order of merit. The first class were styled Rigorosi (Honour-men), the second Transibiles (Pass-men), the third Gratiosi (Charity-passes); while a fourth class, not publicly announced, contained the names of those who could not be passed on any terms. “Si autem (quod absit!),” says the Statute, “aliqui inveniantur refutabiles, erant de quarto ordine.” “These competitive examinations”⁠—I proceed in the historian’s words⁠—“contributed largely to raise Louvain to the high position as a place of learning and education which it retained before the universities were roused from their 15th century torpor by the revival of Learning.” Pope Adrian VI was one of its famous Primuses, and Jansen another. The college which produced a Primus enjoyed three days’ holiday, during which its bell was rung continuously day and night.

At Oxford and Cambridge (I repeat) we find in their early days no trace of any examination at all. To be sure⁠—and as perhaps you know⁠—the first archives of this university were burned in the “Town and Gown” riots of 1381 by the Townsmen, whose descendants Erasmus describes genially as “combining the utmost rusticity with the utmost malevolence.” But no student will doubt that Cambridge used pretty much the same system as Oxford, and the system was this:⁠—When a candidate presented himself before the Chancellor for a License in Arts, he had to swear that he had heard certain books,5 and nine Regent Masters (besides his own Master, who presented him) were required to depose to their knowledge (de scientia) of his sufficiency: and five others to their credence (de credulitate), says the Statute. Only in the School of Theology was no room allowed to credulity: there all the Masters had to depose “of their knowledge,” and one black ball excluded.

VI

Well, you may urge that this method has a good deal to be said for it. I will go some way to meet you too: but first you must pay me the compliment of supposing me a just man. Being a just man, and there also being presumed in me some acquaintance with English Literature⁠—not indeed much⁠—not necessarily much⁠—but enough to distinguish good writing from bad or, at any rate, real writing from sham, and at least to have an inkling of what these poets and prose-writers were trying to do⁠—why then I declare to you that, after two years’ reading with a man and talk with him about literature, I should have a far better sense of his industry, of his capacity, of his performance and (better) of his promise, than any examination is likely to yield me. In short I could sign him up for a first, second or third class, or as refutabilis, with more accuracy and confidence than I could derive from taking him as a stranger and pondering his three or four days’ performance in a Tripos. For some of the best men mature slowly: and some, if not most, of the best writers write slowly because they have a conscience; and the most original minds are just those for whom, in a literary examination, it is hardest to set a paper.

But the process (you will admit) might be invidious, might lend itself to misunderstanding, might conceivably even lead to reimposition of an oath forbidding the use of a knife or other sharp implement. And among colleges rivalry is not altogether unknown; and dons, if unlike other men in outward aspect, sometimes resemble them in frailty; and in short I am afraid we shall have to stick to the old system for a while longer. I am sorry, Gentlemen: but you see how it works.

VII

Yet⁠—and I admit it⁠—the main objection abides: that, while Literature deals with What Is rather than with What Knows, Examinations by their very nature test mere Knowledge rather than anything else: that in the hands of a second-rate examiner they tend to test knowledge alone, or what passes for knowledge: and that in the very run of this world most examiners will be second-rate men: which, if we remind ourselves that they receive the pay of fifth-rate ones is, after all, considerably better than we have a right to expect.

We are dealing, mind you, with English Literature⁠—our own literature. In examining upon a foreign literature we can artfully lay our stress upon Knowledge and yet neither raise nor risk raising the fatal questions “What is it all about?” “What is it, and why is it it?”⁠—since merely to translate literally a chorus of the Agamemnon, or an ode of Pindar’s, or a passage from Dante or Molière is a creditable performance; to translate either well is a considerable feat; and to translate either perfectly is what you can’t do, and the examiner knows you can’t do, and you know the examiner can’t do, and the examiner knows you know he can’t do. But when we come to a fine thing in our own language⁠—to a stanza from Shelley’s “Adonais” for instance:

He has outsoared the shadow of our night;
Envy and calumny and hate and pain,
And that unrest which men miscall delight,
Can touch him not and torture not again;
From the contagion of the world’s slow stain
He is secure, and now can never mourn
A heart grown cold, a head grown gray in vain;
Nor, when the spirit’s self has ceased to burn,
With sparkless ashes load an