ourselves of a modern opinion, that study exists for 
     examinations rather than examinations for study. Indeed, 
     to apply the measure of their prevalence and efficiency to 
     the education of past generations, would be to commit 
     an anachronism.
          We might look in vain for any public examination to 
     justify the learning and research which in the seventeenth 
     century made English students famous:—whose efforts 
     were fostered, rather by the encouragement of tutors and 
     friends, than by the disputations in the schools. 
     Examinations in our modern acceptation there were none. 
     As books became cheaper, the quicker and the more 
     diligent students discovered that they could acquire 
     knowledge for themselves where previous generations had 
     been dependent on the oral teaching. Then arose the 
     necessity of examination, and as this has come to be