Such subconscious preparation is theoretically the best and proper way. Examinations are incidents, and not ends, and they are a necessary evil to every instructor, even more than to every student. If study for examination is done along these lines, in this general manner, learning is really learning. In addition there is no worry. No worry-excitement arises in the mind, as the "critical" time approaches, no phobia to disturb and even undermine the mental and bodily processes, and to disarrange the ready association of ideas. There is a vast waste of energy in worry; fear (worry is fear) starves the brain by using up on itself its food over-fast.
On the other hand, the prospect and the certainty of an examination provide the requisite emotional tone to give study its necessary concreteness and practicality. Examination is thus an incentive to vigorous study and therefore more or less necessary educatively as well as merely expedient. If these "ordeals" had not been shown to be necessary by centuries of world-wide experience, it is absolutely certain they would have been abandoned, for they constitute to the conscientious teacher and instructor the most disagreeable and laborious portion of the entire
