Not that there is less
work done at Oxford than at Leipzig, but that the work is done in a
different spirit. It is free in Germany; it has now become almost
compulsory in England. Though an old professor myself, I like to attend,
when I can, some of the professorial lectures in Germany; for it is a real
pleasure to see hundreds of young faces listening to a teacher on the
history of art, on modern history, on the science of language, or on
philosophy, without any view to examinations, simply from love of the
subject or of the teacher. No one who knows what the real joy of learning
is, how it lightens all drudgery and draws away the mind from mean
pursuits, can see without indignation that what ought to be the freest and
happiest years in a man's life should often be spent between cramming and
examinations.

And here I have at last mentioned the word, which to many friends of
academic freedom, to many who dread the baneful increase of uniformity,
may seem the cause of all mischief, the most powerful engine for
intellectual levelling--_Examination_.

There is a strong feeling springing up everywhere against the tyranny of
examinations, against the cramping and withering influence which they are
supposed to exercise on the youth of England. I cannot join in that
outcry. I well remember that the first letters which I ventured to address
to the _Times_, in very imperfect English, were in favor of examinations.
They were signed _La Carriere ouverte_, and were written before the days
of the Civil Service Commission! I well remember, too, that the first time
I ventured to speak, or rather to stammer, in public, was in favor of
examinations. That was in 1857, at Exeter, when the first experiment was
made, under the auspices of Sir T. Acland, in the direction of what has
since developed into the Oxford and Cambridge Local Examinations. I have
been an examiner myself for many years, I have watched the growth of that
system in England from year to year, and, in spite of all that has been
said and written of late against it, I confess I do not see how it would
be possible to abolish it, and return to the old system of appointment by
patronage.

But though I have not lost my faith in examinations, I cannot conceal the
fact that I am frightened by the manner in which they are conducted, and
by the results which they produce. As you are interested yourselves at
this Midland Institute in the successful working of examinations, you wi