1889 IMMATURE FISH 125 



has a right to hold me responsible for a document to 

 which my name is attached, and I should look more like 

 a fool than I ever wish to do, if I had to tell him that I 

 had taken the thing entirely on trust. I have always 

 objected to the sleeping partnership in the Examination ; 

 and unless it can be made quite clear that I am nothing 

 but a "consulting doctor," I really must get out of it 

 entirely. 



Of course I cannot say whether the Report is justified 

 by the facts or not, when I do not know anything about 

 them. But from my experience of what the state of 

 things used to be, I should say that it is, in all prob- 

 ability, fair. 



The faults mentioned are exactly those which always 

 have made their appearance, and I expect always will do 

 so, and I do not see why the attention of the teachers 

 should not as constantly be directed to them. You talk 

 of Eton. Well, the reports of the Examiners to the 

 governing body, year after year, had the same unpleasing 

 monotony, and I do not believe that there is any educa- 

 tional body, from the Universities downwards, which 

 would come out much better, if the Examiners' reports 

 were published and if they did their duty. 



I am unable to see my way (and I suppose you are) 

 to any better method of State encouragement of science 

 teaching than payment by results. The great and 

 manifest evil of that system, however, is the steady 

 pressui-e which it exerts in the development of every 

 description of sham teaching. And the only check upon 

 this kind of swindling the public seems to me to lie in 

 the hands of the Examiners. I told Mr. Forster so, ages 

 ago, when he talked to me about the gradual increase of 

 the expenditure, and I have been confirmed in my 

 opinion by all subsequent experience. What the people 

 who read the reports may say, I should not care one 2d. 

 d — if I had to administer the thing. 



Nine out of ten of them are incompetent to form any 



