IV EXAMINATIONS 181 



highest authority in the educational system, and it is 

 desirable that it should give direction to school educa- 

 tion, and maintain by its criticism a certain standard 

 of efficiency in the work of masters and scholars alike. 

 On the other hand, there is no authority beyond that 

 of the university, and accordingly there is not the 

 same reason for subjecting university students to 

 examination by persons who have not been their 

 teachers as there is in the case of schools. 



The plan of setting "impartial" examiners who 

 have had nothing to do with the teaching of 

 the examinees to test them by written papers and 

 vivd voce questioning is the primary evil from which 

 all the abuse of examination in the English universities 

 springs. The system has grown to such dimensions 

 and acquired such collateral developments in Oxford 

 and Cambridge that in my opinion the condemnation 

 expressed by Professor Freeman and Mr. Frederic 

 Harrison is fully justified. The system administered 

 by the examining board in Burlington Gardens, known 

 as the University of London, is even more injurious in 

 its results. I venture to express this opinion as 

 having acted for some years in the capacity of ex- 

 aminer for the University of London and at intervals 

 for the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. It 

 is desirable to state a little more fully what the 

 system objected to is, and the nature of the evil 

 which it produces. The special examiner — if I may 

 use that term to signify an examiner who is not 

 the teacher of the examinee — is employed both to 

 carry on pass examinations, which in themselves are 



