COMMENTS OjV THE '^SACRIFICE OF EDUCATION:' 537 



competitive examinations. Competitive examinations, liowever, 

 might be toned down to a minimum, and a year of probation 

 might possibly be substituted for the final and decisive examina- 

 tion. I say possibly, for, as is well known, we have always to 

 think of " Take care of Dowb." 



Two things seem to me necessary : (1) A careful supervision of 

 examiners. If the examinations are to remain in the hands of 

 the youngest members of the university, their report should 

 always be made, first of all, to the respective faculties, and after- 

 ward only, when approved by the faculty, to the vice-chancellor. 

 The necessity of this has been shown by recent experiences in 

 India and elsewhere. (3) A gradual change of comx3etitive into 

 qualifying examinations. 



Many years ago we wanted to have examinations for the sake 

 of schools and universities ; we now seem to have schools and 

 universities simply and solely for the sake of examinations. 



Prof. EDWAED A. FEEEMAN. 



Of the working of the fashionable fancy for endless examina- 

 tions, I can speak from direct knowledge only in my own univer- 

 sity. Coming back to Oxford, after many years of non-residence, 

 I was perhaps better able to compare what is and what was than 

 either those who have never known anything but the present sys- 

 tem or those who have seen the present system grow up. Just 

 now it seems to be understood that examinations are the chief 

 end of life, at any rate of university life ; they would seem to be 

 thought to have an opus operatum merit for both the examiner 

 and the examined. The object seems to be to multiply exami- 

 nations as much as possible, to split them up — what is called to 

 " specialize " them — to the extreme point. A man is not, as of 

 old, wholly plucked or wholly passed ; with the ingenuity of Ital- 

 ian tyrants, a piece of him is plucked or passed, while the rest of 

 him is kept for the sport of another day. The end steadily kept 

 in view would seem to be that examinations should never cease, 

 that therefore nothing should really be learned, that examina- 

 tions should follow so fast on one another as just to give time to 

 forget the matter of one examination before the next comes on. 

 The thing has grown to such a height that names can not be 

 found for some of the endless schools, they have to be marked by 

 numbers and letters. The gravest personages will be seen debat- 

 ing with the gravest countenances over some peddling change in 

 " Group A 1," seemingly without the faintest feeling of the gro- 

 tesque nature of their employment, or of the rediidio ad absur- 

 dum of the whole system which is implied in such a nomencla- 

 ture, if nomenclature it can be called. The Oxford undergradu- 



