LIFE OF DR. EOLLESTON. li 



men, who are a very small class, and all human regulations 

 inconvenience somebody; good men are benefited by being 

 obliged to take stock of their attainments, and put them into 

 easily manageable form and shape; bad men, $aSAoi mentally 

 and morally, are saved often from utter ruin by the conscious- 

 ness that a sword of Damocles is hanging over them, "jamjam 

 lapsura cadentique imminet assimilis," in the shape of a coming 

 examination.' But the longer he taught, the more he became im- 

 pressed with the harm done to a serious student's career by the 

 pressure to get up subjects in order to answer questions. He 

 tells a favourite and successful pupil that he hopes to get him an 

 appointment 'when you have got rid of these examinations.' 

 Referring to a case where some men were put in a lower class 

 than they were known to have merited he says, ' Such accidents 

 in the very nature of the case will from time to time occur and 

 teach everybody to look to other results besides those of Class 

 Lists.' His desire to alter the Examination system in Oxford 

 increased with years, and one of his last occupations was to set 

 down the results of his experience in a Memorandum. Here he 

 fully acknowledges the value of Examination. The awakening of 

 intellectual activity by its institution at the beginning of the 

 century cannot, he says, be doubted by any one acquainted with 

 the previous condition of Oxford. But Examination has been 

 accepted ' both inside and outside the University as an Institu- 

 tion for imposing Mint Marks and Trade Marks on men who 

 pass through it as First, Second, Third, and Fourth Class-men. 

 I believe (with the Scotch University Commissioners) that this 

 function does more harm than good, and I hold that the Univer- 

 sities ought to be content to divide men into two Classes only, 

 those two to be one Class in alphabetical order of Honour-men, 

 and another, also in alphabetical order, of Pass-men.' More men, 

 he believes, would be encouraged to work for the object of 

 getting above the Pass-man level than are found now to work 

 for the hope of getting one of three or four Classes. But to his 

 mind the strongest argument lies in the notorious misplacements 

 in classing. He draws up a list to show ' a few of the glaring 



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