On Reading for Examinations by Arthur Quiller-Couch

I am sorry, Gentlemen: I cannot bring you so much of comfort as all that. I have a love of the past which, because it goes down to the roots, has sometimes been called Radicalism: I could never consent with Bacon's gibe at antiquity as pessimum augurium, and Examinations have a very respectable antiquity. Indeed no university to my knowledge has ever been able in the long run to do without them: and although certain colleges -- King's College here, and New College at Oxford -- for long persevered in the attempt, the result was not altogether happy, and in the end they have consigned with custom.

Of course universities have experimented with the process. Let me give you two or three ancient examples, which may help you to see (to vary Wordsworth) that though "the Form decays, the function never dies."