650 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



admission to the university is not satisfactory either in method or 

 result." x But he prefers what he described as "reform" to what he 

 fallaciously calls " abolition." " One of our more urgent duties 

 is to bring about such a reform, for the sake of many more of 

 our students than those who are affected by the present pro- 

 posal " to exempt mathematicians and science men. 



The new policy is already before us in outline. I summarise 

 letters by Mr. John Murray. 2 Greek, hitherto optional in the 

 great majority of schools till the moment arrives for a boy to 

 be crammed for Smalls, is to be a compulsory subject for a new 

 Leaving Certificate to be awarded at seventeen by a Joint 

 University Board. This Leaving Certificate will be " required 

 of all candidates to the older universities "; but it will " entitle 

 its holders " at the age of seventeen " to specialise forthwith to 

 their hearts' content." Now the last vestige of excuse for Smalls 

 is, as we have seen, that once upon a time it was a real test of 

 proficiency in Greek and Latin, suitable to boys of nineteen who 

 had already followed a real university course in them for some 

 terms and intended to proceed to final courses which were 

 also wholly in Greek and Latin literature, including all ancient 

 history and philosophy, together with Mathematics no less 

 liberally interpreted. It is only become the abuse that it is, 

 because it has been misused by the colleges as a Leaving 

 Certificate for boys under eighteen who have not yet come 

 near the university and many of whom do not intend to open 

 a Greek book again after passing. Responsions, in fact, already 

 " entitles its holders to specialise forthwith to their hearts' 

 content " ; the only difference between the new compulsion and 

 the old is that the new is to be applied at seventeen. Nothing 

 that university examiners can do will force Greek back into the 

 ordinary curriculum of the Greekless schools : all that they can 

 effect under this monstrous proposal is to make Greekless boys 

 cram Smalls Greek a year earlier than at present and to relieve 

 the Grecians a year earlier from the necessity of pursuing the 

 subject to its only profitable stage : for as Mr. Murray's pro- 

 gramme most candidly warns us, " boys would ordinarily take 

 the certificate some time prior to entering the university." 



The incoherence of all this with the deliberate policy of 



1 Pamphlet, November 191 1. 



2 Westminster Gazette, December 4, 191 1 ; Manchester Guardian, December 19, 

 1911. 



