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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



examinations are manifold : they test the progress 

 of the class, and enable the teacher to judge 

 whether he is pursuing a right course at a right 

 speed; they excite emulation in the active and 

 able ; they touch the pride even of those who do 

 not love knowledge much, but still do not like to 

 write themselves down absolute blockheads ; and 

 they are in themselves an exercise in English 

 composition, in the control of the thoughts, and 

 the useful employment of knowledge. In direct 

 educational effect a written examination may be 

 worth half a dozen lectures. Mr. Cross says that 

 examination is not education ; I say that it is. 

 Of course, you cannot examine upon nothing, 

 just as you cannot grind flour in a mill unless you 

 put the grain in. Nevertheless, examination in 

 some form or other represents the really active 

 grinding process in the pupil's mind. 



It is not merely that which goes into the eyes 

 and ears of a student which educates him ; it is 

 that which comes out. A student may sit on the 

 lecture-room benches and hear every word the 

 teacher utters ; but he may carry away as much 

 useful effect as the drowsy auditor of a curate's 

 sermon. To instruct a youth in gymnastics, you 

 do not merely explain orally that he is to climb 

 up one pole, and come down another, and leap 

 over a third. You make him do these motions 

 over and over again, and the education is in the 

 exertion. So intellectual education is measured 

 not by words heard or read, but by thoughts ex- 

 cited. In some subjects mental exertion in the 

 pupil is called forth by the working of problems 

 and exercises. These form a kind of continuous 

 examination, which should accompany every lect- 

 ure. Arithmetic is only to be learned by sums 

 upon the schoolboy's slate, and it is the infinite 

 variety of mathematical tasks, from common 

 addition upward, which makes mathematical sci- 

 ence the most powerful training-ground of the in- 

 tellect. The late Prof. De Morgan was probably 

 the greatest teacher of mathematics who ever 

 lived. He considered it requisite that students 

 should attend his expository lectures for an hour 

 and a quarter every day ; but he always gave an 

 abundance of exercises as well, which, if fully 

 worked out, would take at least as long, and often 

 twice as long, a time. Exercises are the sheet- 

 anchor of the teacher, and in this way only can 

 we explain the extraordinary propensity of clas- 

 sical teachers toward Latin verses. As I have 

 heard such teachers explain, verses though use- 

 less in every other way afford a definite measura- 

 ble amount of exercise — a manageable classical 

 treadmill. For many years past it was my duty 



to teach several subjects — logic, mental and 

 moral philosophy, and political economy. Ex- 

 perience made me acutely aware of the very dif- 

 ferent educational values of these diverse sub- 

 jects. Logic is by far the best, because when 

 properly taught it admits of the same active 

 training by exercises and problems that we find 

 im mathematics. It is no doubt necessary that 

 some instruction should also be given to senior 

 students in philosophy and political economy; 

 but it is difficult in these subjects to make the 

 student think for himself. Examination, then, 

 represents the active as opposed to the passive 

 part of education, and, in answer to Mr. Cross's 

 statement that examination is not education, I 

 venture to repeat that, in some form or other, 

 examination is the most powerful and essential 

 means of training the intellect. 



I now pass on to the wholly different question 

 whether open competitive examinations are the 

 best means of selecting men for important ap- 

 pointments. In this view of examinations the 

 educational results are merely incidental, and the 

 main object is to find an impartial mode of put- 

 ting the right man into the right place, and thus 

 avoiding the nepotism and corruption which are 

 almost inseparable from other methods of ap- 

 pointment. At first sight it might seem absurd 

 to put a man in a position requiring judgment 

 and tact and knowledge of the world because he 

 answers rightly a few questions about mathe- 

 matics and Greek. The head-master of a great 

 school succeeds not by the teaching of the higher 

 forms, but by the general vigor and discretion of 

 his management. He is an administrator, not a 

 pedagogue ; then why choose a high wrangler, 

 because of his command over differential equa- 

 tions ? Why make a young man a magistrate in 

 Bengal, because of his creditable translations 

 from the classics, or his knowledge of English 

 history ? Would it not be far better to select 

 men directly for any success which they have 

 shown in the management of business exactly 

 analogous to that they will have to perform ? 



Experience must decide in such matters, and 

 it seems to decide conclusively in favor of exami- 

 nations. Public opinion and practice, at any rate, 

 are in favor of this conclusion. For a long time 

 back the honors' degrees of Oxford and Cam- 

 bridge have been employed as a means of selec- 

 tion. It does not, of course, follow that a high 

 wrangler, or a double first, will suit every im- 

 portant position ; but it is almost always ex- 

 pected nowadays that a man applying for a high 

 post shall have some high degree. Even those 



