536 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



again like a heavy and useless burden. Nothing is converted in 

 succum et sanguinem. The only thing that seems to remain is 

 an intellectual nausea — a dislike of the food swallowed under 

 compulsion. 



The mischief done is, I believe, most serious. It will poison 

 the best blood of England, if it has not done so already. 



It is the best men who suffer most from the system of per- 

 petual examination. The lazy majority has, I believe, been bene- 

 fited by it, but the vigor of the really clever and ambitious boys 

 has been systematically deadened. Formerly some of my clever 

 young friends were what is called idle at Oxford, but during 

 their hours of idleness, which mostly meant discursive reading 

 and thinking, they grew into something, they became different 

 from others. Now, my young friends seem all alike, all equally 

 excellent, but so excellent that you can hardly tell one from the 

 other. What is the result ? 



We have excellent members of Parliament, excellent judges, 

 excellent bishops, excellent generals : but if we want to know 

 Who is Who ! we must often consult a Red-Book. England is 

 losing its intellectual athletes who were a head and shoulders 

 taller than the rest, and used to be looked up to as born leaders of 

 men. And if history teaches anything, it teaches us that no 

 country remains great without really great men, without a few 

 men different from the rest. 



I am asked what remedy there is. In the university there is, I 

 believe, a remedy. Let there be two sets of examinations, one for 

 clever and studious men who promise to take high honors, another 

 for the many. For the latter the examinations might remain 

 what they are now. Only the degrees might be given, not in the 

 name of the university, but in the name of the different colleges. 

 For the former there should be a real matriculation examination 

 held by the university, not, as now, by the colleges ; and then, 

 after three or four years, a final examination might follow for 

 real academic honors, allowing great latitude in the subjects of 

 examination. 



Much depends in all this on the examiners. In England most 

 examiners are young men, in Germany they are invariably old. 

 The professores ordinarii, who alone examine for academic de- 

 grees in German universities, try to find out what candidates 

 have learned and know ; our young examiners seem chiefly bent 

 on finding out what candidates do not know. Add to this that 

 in some cases, though rarely, examiners are actually the same 

 persons who have crammed their examinees, and it may be im- 

 agined how human nature is tried in that process, and what the 

 result must be. 



With regard to the civil service, I know no substitute for 



