November i6, 191 i] 



NATURE 



91 



real danger lies, and that, as for overlapping, in Principal 

 Griffiths 's words, " Time is not lost when the same country 

 is retraversed under a different guide." 



The principal item on the programme on the second day 

 of the meeting was a discussion on the place of examina- 

 tions in education, opened by Mr. P. J. Hartog and Miss 

 Burstall. The papers, and the discussion which followed 

 them, may well be taken as marking a new stage in the 

 treatment of the subject. Hitherto there has been more 

 than a disposition on the part of educationists to 

 anathematise all external examinations. As Mr. Hartog 

 indicated, little good has come of it : the external examin- 

 ing bodies are not one penny the worse. It is now realised 

 that for some purposes, as, for example, the selection of 

 candidates for the State service and the certification of 

 professional skill, the public have a right to demand an 

 examination by some independent body. Sir William 

 Ramsay, who intervened early in the discussion, and was 

 by far the most outspoken opponent of the conventional 

 type of examination, at least agreed that " we must be 

 guarded against professional murder." The problem is 

 thus seen to be, not the abolition of examinations, but 

 their reform, and to this end the section strongly sup- 

 ported Mr. Hartog 's suggestion that the time is ripe for 

 a Royal Commission to inquire into the whole subject, 

 but with particular reference to the entry into the Civil 

 Service. All the speakers were agreed that teachers should 

 increasingly cooperate in the " branding of their own 

 herrings." Miss Burstall showed how influential the 

 teacher members had been on the Joint Matriculation 

 Board of the northern universities, not as examiners, but 

 as members equally responsible with their colleagues for 

 the scope and arrangement of the examinations. There 

 are other instances in which the cooperation of teachers 

 has been carried very far, and the committee which was 

 appointed as the result of the discussion might very well 

 devote its time to the preparation of a detailed account 

 of some of these experiments and to a report upon the 

 degree of success which has attended them. 



Another aspect of the subject was raised by Mr. Hartog 

 and the president of the section in their remarks upon 

 the suitability of many of the examinations for the purpose 

 they have to serve. It is almost impossible by examina- 

 tion to test the moral of the candidate ; and there are 

 many gifts of tact, alertness, resourcefulness, and the like 

 required in the State service and in professional life which 

 the present system of examinations completely passes by. 

 Mr. Hartog gave an interesting account of a written test 

 which he had himself applied to a group of candidates to 

 ascertain in what degree they possessed certain of these 

 qualities ; but such tests are difficult to devise, and — sub 

 rosa, be it said — they demand corresponding qualities in 

 the examiners. Dr. T. P. Nunn was for once advocatus 

 diaboli, and gave a thoughtful restatement of the argu- 

 ments for external examinations which satisfied the 

 generation that founded the University Locals. In essence 

 it was the case for the influence of a master in a subject 

 exerted upon teachers and upon the study of it generally 

 through the annual paper of questions. But even in Dr. 

 Nunn's hands it failed to carry conviction ; the general 

 level of teaching in schools is much higher in all subjects 

 than it was in days gone by ; an increasing number of 

 teachers come under the personal influence of one or 

 other of the masters of their subject ; and among those 

 who do not, the professional periodicals and the numerous 

 associations and conferences which are so marked a 

 feature of educational life in this generation supply oppor- 

 tunities for the spread of right method and sound doctrine 

 superior to any that a mere paper of questions can afford. 



It is the practice of the sectional committee to set apart 

 one- day for the discussion of recent psycho-physical re- 

 search as connected with education. This year the central 

 topic was that of defective children. A special committee, 

 of which Prof. J. A. Green is secretary, reported the result 

 of an inquiry into the tests actually used in the diagnosis 

 of feeble-mindcdness. The summarised replies received 

 from school medical officers and others show that there is 

 a grave need for some standardisation upon scientific lines 

 in the matter both of diagnosis and subsequent treatment. 

 Dr. Shrubsall gave a detailed account of the methods 

 f'mployed under the London Education Authority for i\v 



testing of mental deficiency. Without presuming to 

 criticise these methods in particular, it is very clear that 

 the methods of diagnosis generally employed are frankly 

 empirical and of almost bewildering variety, and that 

 partly in consequence of this and partly owing to the lack 

 of precise knowledge on types of mental deficiency in 

 relation to the general problems of education there is very 

 little connection in most cases between the initial diagnosis 

 and the subsequent treatment. 



Dr. A. F. Tredgold presented a careful discussion on the 

 nature of mental defect and its relation to the normal. 

 He suggested that neither from the intellectual point of 

 view nor as a result of psychological analysis or histo- 

 logical examination of brain structure could justification 

 be found for regarding the difference between the normal 

 and the defective as in its essence qualitative, although the 

 quantitative differences may and do result in minds of a 

 very different order. In defining mental defect it was 

 necessary to go much deeper than mere ability to perform 

 certain occupations. He would himself define it as a con- 

 dition due to arrested or imperfect brain development, in 

 consequence of which the individual is incapable of main- 

 taining an independent existence. Dr. Abelson followed 

 with a description of a series of tests, in some measure 

 comparable with Binet's, which he had employed for the 

 last three years upon backward children. The problem of 

 the mentally deficient is so pressing from the social point 

 of view that it is not surprising that the discussion soon 

 turned ratheif upon this aspect of the question than upon 

 the report of the committee. Once defective always 

 defective, appears to be the rule. " I have never yet," 

 said Dr. Tredgold, " seen a mentally defective converted 

 into a normal being " ; and again, Miss Dendy : " We can- 

 not train the defective child out of his defect ; he simply 

 grows into a trained feeble-minded man." 



The absolute necessity, in the interests of society, of 

 preventing the multiplication of the unfit, and the in- 

 efficacy of the present law, which allows the feeble-minded 

 adolescent at sixteen years of age to go out info the world, 

 none saying him " Nay," dominated the mind of speaker 

 after speaker. Dr. Saleeby, Mrs. Burgwin, Prof. Dendy, 

 and Mr. McLeod Yearsley took part in the discussion. 

 The last named urged especially the importance of segre- 

 gating the feeble-minded deaf. Miss Dendy showed how 

 much can be accomplished even under present conditions 

 in her description of the feeble-minded colony at Sandle- 

 bridge, which, beginning ten years ago as a small resi- 

 dential special school for little children, and resolutely 

 declining to accept any new pupil over thirteen years of 

 age, has grown into a colony with 270 inhabitants, with 

 two farmhouses, with cottages, a laundry, carpenters' and 

 plumbers' shops, and six residential houses, on about 120 

 acres of land. In the ten years, out of 274 children who 

 have been admitted, only eighteen can be spoken of as 

 failures whose parents have broken their promise to leave 

 them permanently in the school. Very interesting was 

 Miss Dendy 's account of how it had been possible to turn 

 to the service of the community those streaks and patches 

 of intelligence which are found in almost all feeble-minded 

 children, and, unfortunately, are often made the basis of a 

 training in tricks which are of no use either to the 

 individual trained or to anyone else. 



On the last day of the meeting papers were read on 

 practical education in H.M. dockyard and naval schools, 

 bv Mr. Dawe, headmaster of the Dockyard School at 

 Portsmouth, and Mr. W. H. T. Pain, principal instructor 

 of boy artificers on H.M.S. Fisgard. The Fisgard is quite 

 a recent establishment, but the Dockyard School in one 

 form or another has existed for nearly a hundred years. 

 It was claimed by its supporters in the discussion, among 

 them Sir William White, a former pupil in a dockyard 

 school. Profs. Worthington and Gregory. Dr. Kimmins, 

 and Dr. Varley, that the schools might well be taken as 

 a model by authorities responsible for any form of 

 specialised technical training. Of their success there can 

 be no question. Every professor of naval architecture in 

 thp kingdom at the present time has been through one of 

 TI.^^. dockvard schools; of the principal officers in the 

 constructional branch of his Majestv's Nnvy the same may 

 be said, and also of the majority of naval nrchilects at the 

 hr:\<\ of priv.Tte shipbuilding firms, while the lower ranks 



NO. 2194, VOL. 88] 



