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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



LANGUAGE IN EDUCATION. 



THE agitation for a reform in the Civ- 

 il Service, as it is called, should it 

 result in the establishment of that meas- 

 ure, may be expected to produce effects 

 not now much anticipated or cared for. 

 The essence of the reform is to consist 

 in getting better men for office-holders 

 than American politics has hitherto af- 

 forded certainly a most laudable thing. 

 But the mode of arriving at the better 

 qualified men is to be by "examina- 

 tions," that is, by the educational test. 

 Before candidates can be examined, 

 however, and decided upon, it will be 

 necessary to arrange the standards by 

 which they shall be judged, and one of 

 the important effects of the system 

 will be to bring to inexorable judgment 

 those preliminary standards on which 

 the whole policy must rest. One of the 

 reasons why the superstitions and ab- 

 surdities of education are so tenaciously 

 persistent, is the difficulty of bringing 

 the results of so-called culture to direct 

 practical test or verification ; but the 

 examiners who frame the catechism by 

 which candidates for office are to be 

 sifted and accepted or rejected, cannot 

 fail to do something toward the remov- 

 al of this difficulty. In deciding what 

 qualifications are desired, they will give 

 judgment upon the method that has 

 produced them. 



The English have tried Civil Service 

 reform sufficiently long to begin to con- 

 nect cause and effect, and take account 

 of the validity and worth of its stand- 

 ards. They began the system of Civil 

 Service examination in 1853 by drawing 

 up scales of the valuation of different 

 kinds of knowledge as expressed nu- 

 merically by marks, so that proficiency in 

 the various branches could be added up 

 and indicate the "standing," as is done 



in many schools. This scheme, of course, 

 represented current ideas, and the In- 

 dian Civil Service Board decided that 

 "in the two great ancient languages 

 there ought to be an examination not 

 less severe than those examinations by 

 which the highest classical distinctions 

 are awarded at Oxford and Cambridge." 

 This was for those who aspired to civil 

 positions in India ; and how the knowl- 

 edges were rated comparatively may be 

 inferred from the following examples: 



Greek 750 



Latin 750 



French 375 



German 375 



Natural sciences 500 



This marked predominance of dead 

 over living languages, and the still more 

 striking predominance of language over 

 science, could not fail ultimately to 

 bring the whole question under critical 

 scrutiny, and has led to a reestimate of 

 the educational value of lingual studies. 

 We publish part of a paper read by 

 Prof. Bain before the British Social 

 Science Association, wliich deals with 

 this important subject, and our readers 

 will find it valuable as a contribution to 

 education, regardless of the Civil Ser- 

 vice interest, while it illustrates what 

 must be the effect of that reform in 

 bringing educational questions into a 

 new aspect. The overshadowing pre- 

 dominance of language forces an in- 

 quiry which proves that it is of the 

 very lowest possible use as a means 

 of mental culture. 



SAVINGS-BANKS AND STATE CONTROL. 



The recent scandalous revelations 

 concerning the management of savings- 

 banks and similar institutions of trust 

 have, of course, provoked much dis- 



