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.
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