UNIVEESITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. 69 



Beginners always set too difficult questions partly 

 because they are afraid of being suspected of igno- 

 rance if they set easy ones, and partly from not under- 

 standing their business. Suppose that you want to 

 test the relative physical strength of a score of young 

 men. You do not put a hundredweight down before 

 them, and tell each to swing it round. If you do, 

 half of them won't be able to lift it at all, and only 

 one or two will be able to perform the task. You 

 must give them half a hundredweight, and see how 

 they manoeuvre that, if you want to form any esti- 

 mate of the muscular strength of each. So, a prac- 

 tised Examiner will seek for information respecting the 

 mental vigour and training of candidates from the way 

 in which they deal with questions easy enough to let 

 reason, memory, and method have free play. 



No doubt, a great deal is to be done by the care- 

 ful selection of Examiners, and by the copious intro- 

 duction of practical work, to remove the evils insepa- 

 rable from examination; but, under the best of circum- 

 stances, I believe that examination will remain but an 

 imperfect test of knowledge, and a still more imperfect 

 test of capacity, while it tells next to nothing about a 

 man's power as an investigator. 



There is much to be said in favour of restricting 

 the highest degrees in each Faculty, to those who have 

 shown evidence of such original power, by prosecuting 

 a research under the eye of the Professor in whose 

 province it lies ; or, at any rate, under conditions which 



