Dec. 14, 1876] 



NATURE 



m 



tainly indisposed to throw away any more time on this discus- 

 sion ; but I may remind those who are interested in it that the 

 question really lies between Prof. Newton and the Royal Com- 

 missioners. On the one hand, Prof. Newton, with no practical 

 acquaintance with the subject, knowing nothing of the witnesses 

 or of the circumstances under which they gave their evidence, 

 but taking the Index to the evidence as his sole guide, so com- 

 pletely satisfied himself that the 'Commissioners had arrived at an 

 erroneous conclusion in believing our sea-fisheries were flourish- 

 ing that he brought their delinquencies before the British Asso- 

 ciation. On the other hand, Prof. Huxley (who somehow has 

 obtained the character of thoroughly working out any subject he 

 takes up, so far as he has the means of doing so) and the other 

 Commissioners themselves visited the several fishery stations, 

 ascertained beforehand the nature of the disputes and complaints 

 among the fishermen, and examined and cross-exaruined the 

 various witnesses. They spent many days separately and to- 

 gether in considering the evidence on the several subjects of their 

 report, and unanimously agreed to this among other conclu- 

 sions : — 



"The total supply of fish obtained upon the coasts of the 

 United Kingdom has not diminished of late years, but has in- 

 creased ; and it admits of further augmentation to an extent the 

 limits of which are not indicated by any evidence we have been 

 able to obtain." E. W. H. Holdsworth 



Athenreum Club, November 25 



Examinations in Science 



May I beg you will introduce to the notice of your readers a 

 grievance urgently in need of a remedy ? The grievance is con- 

 siderable ; the remedy simple ; and if scientific men ^will not 

 make it their concern, nobody else will. 



A short time ago, when the competitive examination contro- 

 versy waxed warm, I ventured to enter somewhat fully into the 

 present haphazard system of awarding marks to candidates who 

 competed for posts in the public service. My object then was 

 twofold : — (a) to bring facts and figures to bear against the erro- 

 neous statements of a few theorists who unfortunately were able 

 to command a great deal of public attention ; {b) to get fair play 

 for all examinees. My object now, however, is to warn those 

 who advocate the advancement of scientific instruction, that the 

 present faulty method of conducting public examinations (in 

 some quarters at least) tends far more to the depression than to 

 the encouragement of scientific study. Destitute myself of 

 scientific knowledge, and bound to no particular curriculum of 

 instruction, I am obviously not writing from the point of view 

 of a partisan ; and if I have joined in the lament of scientific 

 men that insufiicieat consideration is given in most schools to 

 the teaching of science, it is simply because there are good 

 grounds for the conviction that the higher education of this 

 country is too one-sided. 



The point I wish to raise is not whether the grammar and 

 philosophy of science contribute to the training and stimulating 

 of the youthful mind in a greater or less proportion than the 

 grammar and ornaments of the Latin and Greek languages ; 

 nor whether so-called technical instruction is being properly 

 administered or injudiciously shelved ; but I am asking whether 

 scientific teaching, so however little it be, is adequately en- 

 couraged by scientific men in the persons of their public 

 examiners ? 



Judging from the issues of certain examinations, the candi- 

 dates for which are drawn from the leading schools, I am satis- 

 i fied that it is not. 



By dint only of considerable pressure are candidates induced 

 j nowadays to carry on their school course in science for an addi- 

 Itional year or two, so general is the conviction among them that 

 jthey are merely gambling for marks and that the object of much 

 Ihonest labour will not be attained. In fact, for the particular 

 Iptrposes they have in view, they run the double risk of wasting 

 Itheir time and t)urning their fingers. 



j^It may, of course, be urged that the ends of science are not 



thered by youths v\ ho aspire to touch only a modest limit in 



Sw of qualifying for public employment ; but surely as much 

 be said of almost every other branch of study. And if this 



really the opinion entertained by science examiners, it would 

 |he better at once to expunge all scientific subjects from the 

 KGrovernment programmes. 



I But candidates and teachers are concerned only with the rules 



|md regulations that are actually current, and that wiser men have 



lade ; and their grievance is that there is a greater element ofuncer- 



tainty in the awards issued for science tJian for any other subject. 

 Instead of estimating the various science subjects as fractional 

 parts of a wide and comprehensive programme, and of dispensing 

 marks on a fixed and definite plan whereby a given quota of 

 proficiency shall he made to carry the same relative weight as a 

 given quota of proficiency in other branches, it would seem that 

 caminers, who, by the way, are constantly being changed, 

 regard their own branch as a distinct entity — set up their own 

 standard of excellence for the nonce — and distribute basket after 

 basket of ducks' eggs among all who fail to reach a very ad- 

 vanced qualifying minimum, forgetting perhaps that meanwhile 

 the classical candidate is receiving his modest or substantial re- 

 ward according to the character of his work. The position indeed 

 would be pretty much the same as if a classical examiner should 

 announce that no candidate would be entitled to a single mark who 

 did not write a faultless copy of Greek verses ! I am prepared to 

 show that this ideal standard has varied to the extent of 50 per 

 cent, in two successive years ; nay, more, that science candi- 

 dates have suffered a loss of 50 per cent, in their marks after 

 an additional year's reading under the best teaching that money 

 can purchase. A case occurred some months ago of a youth 

 who, having won the Huxley and Balfour prizes in Edinburgh, 

 entered his name for an open competitive examination in Lon- 

 don. He obtained 64 out of 1,000 marks in his two branches 

 of science, at a moment when from 500 to 600 marks out of a 

 total of 1,500 were being showered upon the classical men. At 

 this particular ordeal " Chemistry " chanced to receive decent 

 recognition, but as this youth's tastes happened to run in another 

 direction he was ignominiously defeated. 



Any number of such cases may be enumerated, but perhaps 

 I have said enough to prove that a real grievance does exist. 



The remedy is obvious : either to induce the authorities to 

 strike out the words " Natural Science" from their list of sub- 

 jects, or to arrange for the formation of a committee of science 

 examiners who will devise some plan for fixing, as nearly as 

 possible, a uniform standard, and for distributing marks on 

 equitable principles, after consultation with the classical, mathe- 

 matical, and other examiners. In default of this I do not hesitate 

 to say that examinees will continue to be trifled with at the m "(st 

 important crisis of their lives ; for at these public examinations it 

 is no longer a question whether they gain a scholarship or improve 

 their position at school — it is a question of their future career. 



I have yet to state the main point. Setting aside the fact of 

 hardship and injustice, it may be asked how far the present 

 independent and very summary system of dealing with batches of 

 schoolboys can possibly cripple the cause of the technicists who 

 are anxious to press forward the teaching of science. My reply 

 is that science candidates, heartsick with disappointment, will 

 fall out of the ranks and will induce others not to enter them ; 

 the belief will rapidly gain ground in the schools that science is 

 " a mistake ;" and there is abundant reason for supposing that 

 many a schoolmaster will be only too willing to endorse this 

 opinion. I contend that our public examiners wield the thong 

 that lashes the schools into action, and that we are only just 

 beginning to get fair play for what are called "modern " subjects, 

 but that unless our science examiners apportion their marks in a 

 more just and consistent manner they will simply drive all science 

 candidates " bag and baggage " out of the field. In other words, 

 they will virtually be paying a premium to the schoolmasters for 

 neglecting to carry out the very objects they are clamouring for. 



W. Baptiste Scoones 



Garrick Chambers, Garrick Street, 

 December 12 



The Rocks of Charnv^ood Forest 



May I be allowed a short space in reply to Prof. Hull's cour- 

 teous reference to my letter on the Charnwood rocks, for I fear 

 that I have failed to make two points in that sufficiently clear ? 

 One was, that as the Borrowdale series of the Lake District and 

 the (Lower) Cambrian series of North Wales are equally azoic, 

 no correspondence in time with the latter could be inferred for 

 the azoic Charnwood rocks. The argument from absence of fossils 

 surely tells as much one way as the other ; indeed, having regard 

 to the similar petrological conditions of the Borrowdale and 

 Charnwood rocks, I think it is slightly in favour of their corre- 

 spondence. The other point was, that as Prof. Sedgwick's term 

 Cambrian included the Cambrian and Lower Silurian of the 

 survey, his authority could not be quoted in favour of the (Lower) 

 Cambrian age of the Charnwood rocks any more than of their 

 correspondence with the Borrowdale series, unless it could be 



