182 EXAMINATIONS IV 



free from objection, and indeed necessary parts of a 

 university curriculum, and also to conduct competitive 

 examinations for " honours " and university prizes. 

 He examines pupils taught in a number of different 

 colleges, who compete with one another like the 

 race-horses from rival stables. The teachers act the 

 part of trainers, and university teaching assumes the 

 form of a keen and restless competition for success in 

 the examination. The result in regard to the teach- 

 ing is most disastrous. It has been deliberately 

 maintained by the advocates of the system (to carry 

 out which the present University of London exists) 

 that its chief advantage is that by employing first-rate 

 examiners you can dispense with any provision for first- 

 rate teachers, or indeed any teaching at all, since the 

 examining body lays down in detail the subjects of the 

 university curriculum, and by a free competition those 

 teachers will come to the front who succeed in passing 

 most candidates or gaining most honours. The direct 

 result of this plan is that in London there are a large 

 number of teachers who take very low fees, and who 

 teach their subjects solely with the view of securing a 

 pass for their pupils with the minimum expenditure 

 of time. Competition leads to the underselling of 

 capable men by inferiors, and a consequent diffusion 

 of the students among a number of small private 

 or semi-public institutions where, as the results of 

 the examination-room show only too clearly, they are 

 not well taught. At Oxford and Cambridge the 

 result of the system of special examiners is modified 

 by the " peculiar institution " of those universities 



