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. + 