12 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



than the modification in essential particulars of the conditions 

 on which scholarships are awarded. Many of us feel that they 

 are too often given on insufficient evidence and that scholars 

 are too much an artificial product manufactured to order by 

 the schools. 



An entirely false standard is set, owing to the severity of 

 the examinations ; as a consequence the work of schools is 

 interfered with most seriously. It is practically impossible 

 for those who are proceeding to the Universities to obtain a 

 satisfactory general education at school, a high degree of 

 specialisation being necessary to insure success in the scholar- 

 ship examinations. This is particularly the case in classics. 

 The seeds of narrowness are therefore sown at school, under 

 the all-compelling influence of the College scholarship examina- 

 tion ; and the University entrance examination has no correcting 

 influence. College and University, in fact, work almost at cross 

 purposes : whilst it should be the object of the University to 

 encourage the general efficiency of schools, the course of action 

 pursued at the Colleges is such as to compel all who compete 

 for scholarships to specialise during the later and more fruitful 

 years of school life ; and as the pace of a school is more or less 

 set for its scholars, as the main object in view is to select out 

 those who w r ill eventually be scholars, the College policy has 

 the most unfortunate tendency of preventing the application of 

 the doctrine of the greatest good for the greatest number in 

 very many of our schools. Another point of consequence to 

 be mentioned is that the policy under discussion also has the 

 effect of unduly forcing up the age of entry at the Universities — 

 as only boys of ripened intelligence can compete successfully. 

 The College policy unfortunately serves to give support to 

 the policy favoured by schools of retaining boys as long as 

 possible to " run " the games and to act as monitors and 

 prefects ; the result is our boys are kept under the narrowing 

 conditions of school discipline far too long and when they 

 enter the University as young men in age are still boys in 

 habit and mode of thought : having been helped and ordered 

 so long, they have lost much of their individuality and too 

 •often are unable to avail themselves properly of the oppor- 

 tunities of freedom which the University offers as they con- 

 tinue to need leading after having been led so long. In 

 discussing the problem, it must not be forgotten that the 



