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[1], 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 f