910 THE EXAMINATION SYSTEM AND THE 



SO as to be readily transmissible and communicable in public ; the 

 hearer is benefited by obtaining* orally, or rather auditorally, what it 

 would have cost him more time to obtain, if indeed he could have 

 obtained it at all, by reading* or otherwise. Besides, hearing* is what 

 is known as a ' natural process,' and no improvement in the way of 

 printing can ever entirely supersede it, or make it what it is some- 

 times said to be — namely, ' a barbarous anachronism.' I say nothing 

 of the advantag-e to be drawn from contact with a living personal 

 source of knowledge, though it is clear enough that a few striking 

 expressions delivered by an earnest man viva voce may awaken more 

 thought and create more lively interest than a whole volume of 

 print, however well illustrated. For as iron sharpeneth iron, so 

 man the face of his friend. I see, know, and gratefully recollect the 

 benefits of lectures ; but the more excellent an institution is the 

 more is it likely to be injured by compulsory enactments intended 

 to govern or protect it. Attendance at morning or evening chapel, 

 or both, is an excellent practice ; but the making it compulsory 

 has a very sure, I do not say an invariable, tendency to rob it of its 

 beneficial effect. It is a more edifying sight to see a single indi- 

 vidual going to such a service spontaneously, — as I am told a very 

 distinguished statesman, the junior member for a constituency not 

 a hundred miles hence, may be seen doing in all weathers, — than to 

 see a whole college of young men hurrying to Divine service to have 

 their attendance upon it entered as upon a roll-call. I am glad to 

 think that the answering a roll-call pure and simple is allowed in 

 some of our colleges to stand as an alternative for attendance in 

 chapel. Now compulsory attendance at lectures, like compulsory 

 attendance at chapels, aims at attaining something which I believe 

 to be distinctly good, but which I also know to be as distinctly not 

 securable by it. I cannot see the wisdom of aiming at the un- 

 attainable, and as testimony to bodily attendance is the only result 

 really attained by the process of ' signing up,' I should distinctly 

 limit the bearing of the documents I refer to to the scope really 

 attainable — to wit, the scope of a roll-call. I am informed that in 

 one of the largest of continental countries, the system of signing 

 for students is entirely given up, it having been so much abused, 

 and that if a student only passes his examinations well he need not 

 have attended a single lecture. Hereby, however, I submit that 

 the public are robbed of some of the security which they have a 



