542 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



cramming;, the wholesale, mechanical, and hurried way in which 

 the examinations are held, and the subjection of teaching to ex- 

 amining. In sum, I complain that the trick, the easily acquired 

 and cheaply purchasable trick, of answering printed questions 

 should now so largely take the place of solid knowledge and be 

 officially held out as the end of study. 



I shall say nothing about elementary schools. As these are 

 compulsory by law, supported by rates and taxes, and adminis- 

 tered by the state and public bodies, and, above all, teach mainly 

 the mere rudiments, there may be reasons for an organized system 

 of examination which do not apjjly to the higher education. Here 

 the examiners are clearly superior in learning to the teachers ; 

 the curriculum itself is more or less mechanical and capable of 

 mechanical tests ; and a certain uniformity may be inevitable, 

 and a certain standard of efficiency must be tested. I do not ap- 

 prove of our present system of examining in elementary schools. 

 But I desire to say nothing about it. Nor shall I say anything 

 about the physical effects of overpressure by examination. It is 

 not my subject, and I leave it to others, merely adding, as is plain, 

 that at least nine tenths of any overpressure on students arises 

 from examinations and not from simple study. ISTor shall I say 

 anything about official appointments. I have no special theory or 

 plan to suj)port. As a rule, I think people whom we trust to gov- 

 ern must be trusted to select capable agents. If we can not trust 

 them to do this, let us not trust them to govern us. If examina- 

 tions are required to restrain jobbery, I prefer to deal with the 

 jobbery face to face and by direct means, and not to pervert all 

 public and private education in order to checkmate the wicked 

 jobbers and reward the best crammed ones. Nor am I called 

 upon here to devise a counter-project and to suggest other tests 

 than examination for distinctions and prizes. The distinction and 

 prize system is already absurdly overdone ; and nineteen twen- 

 tieths of the tests are wholly needless, or rather actively mischiev- 

 ous. We want neither distinctions, prizes, nor tests in anything 

 like the profusion in which they are now poured out. Art, learn- 

 ing, politics, and amusement are deluged with shows, races, com- 

 petitions, and prizes. Life is becoming one long scramble of jDrize- 

 winning and pot-hunting. And examination, stereotyped into a 

 trade, is having the same effect on education that the betting sys- 

 tem has on every healthy sport. I do not deny that teachers may 

 usefully examine their own students as a help to their own teach- 

 ing. I do not say that there may not be one public and formal 

 examination in any prolonged educational curriculum. My plea 

 is against that organized, mechanical, incessant, professional ex- 

 amination, by which education is being distorted, and the spirit 

 of healthy learning is being poisoned. 



