This they did, perhaps without intending to do it.

Indeed, now that there was no external examination to look forward to, the pressure on the child may be said to have automatically relaxed itself.

What happened--I will not say in all schools, but in far too many--was that the teaching remained as mechanical and unintelligent as ever, that the teacher continued to distrust the child and to do everything for him, but that the child gradually became slacker and less industrious.

Not that his teacher wished him to "slack," but that the stimulus of the yearly examination had been withdrawn at a time when there was nothing to take its place.

Exercise is in itself a delightful thing when it is wholesome, natural, and rational; but when it is unwholesome, unnatural, and irrational, it will not be taken in sufficient measure except in response to some strong external stimulus.