UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. 65 



ashamed to think how very little real knowledge underlay the torrent 

 of stuif which I was able to pour out on paper. In fact, that which 

 examination, as ordinarily conducted, tests, is simply a man's power 

 of work under stimulus, and his capacity for rapidly and clearly pro- 

 ducing that which, for the time, he has got into his mind. Now, these 

 faculties are by no means to be despised. They are of great value in 

 practical life, and are the making of many an advocate, and of many a 

 so-called statesman. But, in the pursuit of truth, scientific or other, 

 they count for very little, unless they are supplemented by that long- 

 continued, patient " intending of the mind " as Newton phrased it, 

 which makes very little show in examinations. I imagine that an ex- 

 aminer, who knows his students personally, must not unfrequently 

 have found himself in the position of finding A's paper better than B's, 

 though his own judgment tells him, quite clearly, that B is the man 

 who has the larger share of genuine capacity. 



Again, there is a fallacy about examiners. It is commonly sup- 

 posed that any one who knows a subject is competent to teach it ; and 

 no one seems to doubt that any one who knows a subject is competent 

 to examine in it. I believe both these opinions to be serious mistakes ; 

 the latter, perhaps, the more serious of the two. In the first place, I 

 do not believe that any one who is not, or has not been a teacher, is 

 really qualified to examine advanced students. And, in the second 

 place, examination is an art, and a diflficult one, which has to be learned 

 like all other arts. 



Beginners always set too difficult questions — partly because they 

 are afraid of being suspected of ignorance if they set easy ones, and 

 partly from not understanding their business. Suppose that you want 

 to test the relative physical strength of a score of young men. You 

 do not put a hundred-weight down before them, and tell each to swing 

 it round. If you do, half of them won't be able to lift it at all, and 

 only one or two will be able to perform the task. You must give them 

 half a hundred-weight, and see how they manoeuvre that, if you want 

 to form any estimate of the muscular strength ef each. So, a practised 

 examiner will seek for information respecting the mental vigor and 

 training of candidates from the way in which they deal with questions 

 easy enough to let reason, memory, and method, have free play. 



No doubt, a great deal is to done by the careful selection of exam- 

 iners, and by the copious introduction of practical work, to remove 

 the evils inseparable from examination ; but, under the best of circum- 

 stances, I believe that examination will remain but an imperfect test 

 of knowledge, and a still more imperfect test of capacity, while it tells 

 next to nothing about a man's power as an investigator. 



There is much to be said in favor of restricting the highest degrees, 

 in each faculty, to those who have shown evidence of sufli original 

 power, by prosecuting a research under the eye of the professor in 

 whose province it lies ; or, at any rate, under conditions which shall 



VOL. V. — 5 



