LrNNEAN SOCIETY OF LOIfDON. 37 



This, however, is not the only use to which examination is put. 

 It is employed as a means of estimating the capacity of the 

 candidate to take part in the business of life after the exami- 

 nation. How far it can be relied upon to answer this second 

 purpose is not clear. The State thinks so highly of the system 

 that it is now used for a third purpose, that of estimating the 

 efficiency of the teacher. 



So far as instruction is concerned, the method of examination 

 by expert assessors unacquainted with the temperament of the 

 examined may be the most practicable means of arriving at 

 the desired retrospect and forecast. It is, however, clear that 

 as regards education, if the method of examination must be 

 relied on, the test can only be applied b}^ the scholar. Whether 

 the party examined should be the teacher in presence of an 

 expert assessor, or an assessor in presence of a certified teacher, 

 is a question to be settled by those skilled in education, as 

 contrasted \\ith instruction. It may even be held that such 

 an examination is not practicable. This does not relieve us of 

 our duty to point out to those who profess to be expei'ts, that until 

 some means of testing the results of education have been devised, 

 we must be content to take things as we find them ; we must be 

 satisfied " to reap what we sow." So long as the examiner, 

 as opposed to the schoolmaster, " is abroad among us," so long 

 as the present examination-system, whose merits we may admit, 

 and its correlated syllabus-system, whose evils are indisputable, 

 hold the field, we must accept as a substitute for ' education ' 

 what peoples more logical if !not more perspicuous than ourselves, 

 are sufficiently modest to speak of as ' public instruction.' 



Many earnest philosophical students of nature are at present 

 exercised with regard to the shortcomings of what they term 

 a ' literary education.' When one more judicially minded 

 ventures to suggest that the protagonists of literary and scientific 

 training resemble the leaders of the factions in Lilliput, masters 

 of diction and dialectic from the opposing camps fall upon and 

 rend him. The approved attitude of the champion of scientific 

 doctrine is to regard his opponent as he would the fanatic who 

 thinks the earth is flat : that of the champion of literary training 

 is to class his adversary with the enthusiast who hopes to square 

 the circle. If both were wrong we might echo the dying wish o£ 

 Mercutio. 



But what if both be right ? Asa means of instruction the 

 facts of physical science are as useful as those of grammar and 

 history. Tliey cannot be more repellent to the most recalcitrant 

 instinct than chronicles of kings and narratives of events. As 

 mental pabulum they must be healthier than many of the 

 histories of constitutions and peoples which now replace the 

 older " tables of important dates.'" Scientific treatises may be less 

 graceful in their diction : they are free from the risk of being 

 partisan pamphlets -writ large. As a means of education the facts 

 of natural history can, up to a certain point, be made as effective 



