OXFORD ON THE UPPER GRADE 5 



Universities (Oxford and Cambridge) have, for historic reasons, 

 become closely connected with the public schools and are 

 dominated by the spirit of the public schools. . . . But, un- 

 fortunately, the spirit of the public schools is obstinately set 

 against intellect — intellectual things, to put it frankly, are 

 unfashionable." 



But our system is not only bad because it is a prize system — 

 the evil influence of examinations is felt in even worse ways. 

 Not only do these discourage all intellectual effort of an un- 

 remunerative kind but they establish an entirely false intel- 

 lectual perspective in the student's mind — their effect is almost 

 uniformly nothing short of demoralising. The attitude en- 

 gendered is humorously pictured in a postscript to one of the 

 inimitable letters by Edward Slade in An Oxford Correspondence: 



" It was too late for post when this treatise — dissertatio de 

 examinationibits — was finished. Wanting a light book after my 

 exertions, I happened to dip into that evergreen trifle, Vice Versa. 

 There I found a remark of that light-headed youth Jolland, 

 which struck me as to the point. He very properly objected 

 to having to learn hymns on Sunday afternoons — but why ? 

 Because ' no one ever got marks for them in any exam he ever 

 heard of.' " 



The average good student not only does not want to learn 

 hymns or their equivalent — he simply can't afford to do so if he 

 wish to take rank in the final school or tripos. 



Our system is an extraordinary one — throughout the under- 

 graduate course, the student is only called upon to acquaint 

 himself with what others have done and to do what others have 

 done : but of such knowledge he must acquire an absolute 

 temporary command to pass well ; more often than not, he is 

 trained only dogmatically and in no wise encouraged to be either 

 critical or inquisitive. At the examination, to be successful, 

 he must be able to reproduce what he has learnt with extra- 

 ordinary skill and fluency. In a few exceptional cases, during 

 an all too brief period of post-graduate study, the attempt is 

 made to teach him to help himself by wet-nursing him through 

 some piece of research work. The majority, however, leave the 

 University without any such training — without any conception 

 how things have been found out in the past and consequently, 

 when it comes to be their turn to teach, they necessarily adopt 

 a purely didactic unimaginative attitude. 



An amusing proof of this is given in An Oxford Corre- 



