EWBANK 



3036 



EXAMINATIONS 



He was director of military opera- 

 tions at the War Office, 1906-10, 

 adjutant-general and a member of 

 the Army Council from 1910-14, 

 when he was appointed G.O.C. 

 Scottish Command, May, 1914, 

 which post he held until May, 

 1918. He was created K.C.B. and 

 lieut. -general in 1911. 



Ewbank, THOMAS (1792-1870). 

 British author. Born at Barnard 

 Castle, March 11, 1792, at the age 

 of 13 he was apprenticed to a 

 plumber, and in 1812 obtained 

 employment in London as a 

 labourer. He emigrated to America 

 about 1819, and started a metal tube 

 manufactory in New York, from 

 which business he retired in 1836. 

 After travelling in Brazil, 1845-46, 

 he published his Life in Brazil, 1856. 

 Ewbank was commissioner of pa- 

 tents from 1849-52. The remainder 

 of his life was spent in writing on 

 engineering subjects and contribut- 

 ing to scientific journals. He died 

 in New York, Sept. 16, 1870. 



Ewe (Lat. ovis, a sheep). Word 

 used for the female of the sheep (q.v.) 

 and of certain other animals. 



Ewe. W. African language- 

 group. Mostly found in Dahome, S. 

 Togoland, and the Gold Coast Col- 

 ony, it forms part of a primitive W. 

 Sudanic speech once widespread in 

 the Guinea region before the advent 

 of Bantu influences. Of the Ewe- 

 speaking peoples the chief French 

 tribes are the Dahome and Mahi ; 

 the British tribes include the 

 Awuna, Agbosomi, and Krikor, E. 

 of the Volta river. The racial type 

 tends to be shorter, fairer, and 

 rounder-headed than that of the 

 true negro. 



Ewell, RICHARD STODDARD 

 (1817-72). American soldier. Born 

 at Georgetown and educated at 

 the military academy of West 

 Point, on the outbreak of the 

 Civil War he resigned his com- 

 mission in 1861 to fight for the 

 Confederacy, and took part in both 

 battles of Bull Run, Antietam, 

 Chancellors ville, Gettysburg, and 

 others. In the closing days of the 

 war, in 1865, Ewell and his force 

 were captured by Sheridan at 

 Sailor's Creek. He died at Spring 

 field, Tennessee, Jan. 25, 1872. 



Ewer. Pitcher or jug with a 

 wide mouth. It is particularly one 

 for holding water for toilet pur- 

 poses. The word is a corruption 

 of Lat. aquarium, watering place: 

 cf. FT. eau. See illus. p. 2443. 



Ewing, SIR JAMSS ALFRED (b. 

 1855). British physicist and en- 

 gineer. Born at Dundee, March 27, 

 1855, he was educated at the high 

 school and at Edinburgh Univer- 

 sity. Until 1878 he assisted Lord 

 Kelvin, and from 1878-83 was 

 professor of mechanical engineer- 



Sir Alfred Ewmg. 

 British physicist 



ing at the imperial university of 

 Tokyo, Japan, where he studied 

 earthquakes. From 1883-90 Ewing 

 was professor 

 of engineering 

 at University 

 College, Dun- 

 dee, and of 

 mechanism 

 and applied 

 mechanics i n 

 Cam bridge 

 University, 

 1890-1903. He 

 sat on the ex- 

 plosives committee, and became a 

 member of the ordnance research 

 board in 1906. In 1903 he was ap- 

 pointed director of naval educa- 

 tion, and in 1916 became principal 

 and vice-chancellor of Edinburgh 

 University. Among his important 

 inventions were : magnetic curve- 

 tracer, hysteresis tester, and a per- 

 meability bridge, all used in testing 

 the iron employed in making 

 dynamos and transformers. He has 

 written much on engineering and 

 scientific subjects, and a Treatise 

 on Earthquake Measurements, 

 1883. He was knighted in 1911. 



Ewing, JULIANA HORATIA (1841- 

 85). Writer of stories for children. 

 She was the daughter of Alfred 

 Gatty, vicar of 

 Ecclesfield, 

 Yorkshire, and 

 the wife of Ma- 

 jor Alexander 

 Ewing. Among 

 the pleasantest 

 of her tales are 

 The Land of 

 Lost Toys, 

 1869; A Flat 

 Iron for a Far- 



Juliana H. Ewing. 

 British author 



/> V: , ''%%. \ 



Ewer. Silver repouss6 ewer in the 

 style of early German goldsmiths 



thing, 1873; Jackanapes, 1884; 

 and The Story of a Short Life, 

 1885 She died May 13, 1885. 



Examinations. The raison 

 d'etre of examinations is the desire 

 to find some ready test of capacity. 

 The system, so far as is known, 

 started in China about 2200 B.C. 

 The medieval universities sought 

 to test intellectual capacity by 

 dialectical discussions called dis- 

 putations. The result was to 

 reward mere " quickness in logical 

 fence." 



The change from disputations to 

 questions, the germ of the modern 

 examination system, dates from 

 the 18th century, when the Cam- 

 bridge tripos list and senior 

 wranglership began to acquire fame. 

 Originally intended " to guide 

 men so that they might learn what 

 was thought best for them," the 

 mathematical tripos soon degene- 

 rated into a test for allocating the 

 college fellowships. The incorpora- 

 tion of the university of London in 

 1836 was important as first differ- 

 entiating the teaching and examin- 

 ing functions of a university, and 

 in 1848 Dr. Whewell, at Cambridge, 

 sought by introducing compulsory 

 examination in elementary sub- 

 jects to prevent perfunctory read- 

 ing of the higher subjects. There- 

 after we observe two educational 

 parties one trying to train men to 

 play a successful part in life; the 

 other, to supply the scientific world 

 with expert mathematicians for 

 professorial chairs. 



At first the whole examination 

 was conducted viva voce. As the 

 number of candidates increased, 

 the viva voce method proved too 

 slow and costly. The need for a 

 close discrimination between large 

 numbers of candidates, not greatly 

 differing in ability, led to the in- 

 troduction of an ever-increasing 

 number of questions on paper, 

 covering an expanding field of facts, 

 and the allotment of marks, which, 

 added up, established an order of 

 merit by a comparison of totals 

 differing sometimes by only a few 

 figures. As the members still in- 

 creased the screw was progressively 

 tightened by enlarging the field of 

 acquisition and deepening the ob- 

 scurity of the tests until many of the 

 examination questions of a body 

 like the old university of London 

 became, in Pope's satiric words, 



. . . tricks to show the stretch of 



human brain. 

 Mere curious pleasure, or ingenious pain. 



Inevitably those candidates suc- 

 ceeded best who by nature could 

 acquire the largest number of facts, 

 retain them until the opening of 

 the examination halls, and place 

 them most rapidly on paper. On 

 the other hand, examiners strove 



