THE INFLUENCE OF THE UNIVERSITIES ON SCHOOL EDUCATION. 453 



eighteen years of age, so that they have had a considerable period for 

 preparation ; and it is open to question whether the present standard of 

 knowledge attained is in all cases a very high one, or one that guarantees 

 any great amount of valuable intellectual training. Even within the 

 narrow field of the present examinatioii a large proportion of the 

 candidates would, I fear, be sorely puzzled by very simple riders on the 

 first Book of Euclid, or by any straightforward piece of narrative in 

 Thucydides, or Herodotus, or Livy, or Tacitus, which they had not seen 

 before, to say nothing of Horace or Virgil, Sophocles, Homer, or Plato. 



The fact is that no experienced person looks upon these university 

 requirements as in any sense representing what candidates of eighteen 

 years of age about to enter on a university course ought to have studied. 

 Neither does any experienced school teacher doubt the capacity of the 

 ordinary boy or girl, if properly trained in habits of industry and atten- 

 tion, to sufficiently master my schedule of subjects. To the plea that, the 

 present limited range of subjects being so indifferently mastered, it 

 would be folly to widen the range, the real answer is that the English 

 schoolboy is, as a rule, a very practical person. He has no great 

 enthusiasm about learning for learning's sake ; he has come somehow to 

 understand that a certain minimum will serve his purpose when he 

 presents himself at a college in Oxford, and so his mind is quiescent in 

 front of his Xenophon, or Euripides, or Virgil, or Euclid, or it is occupied 

 with other things. 



He is commonly described as an idle boy, but this, I venture to think, 

 is a misnomer. 



Give him a practical motive for learning, extend the range of his 

 practical interest in subjects to be studied, stir his practical instincts, 

 rouse his personal ambition by making it clear to him that he may win 

 some distinction in such and such subjects for which he has shown some 

 aptitude or ability, and he sets his mind to work and learns what is 

 required of him with an amount of success which is not seldom a surprise 

 both to himself and to his teacher. So experience shows us to what an 

 extent our antiquated educational arrangements leave capacity un- 

 developed and let young lives run to waste. 



My concluding observation on this subject of examinations is that I 

 should prefer to see the examination of secondary schools retained, as far 

 as possible, within the circle of university influence. 



Even in the presence of the right honourable gentleman who presides 

 over us this morning I must pluck up courage to say that I should regret 

 to see it established exclusively at Whitehall. My hope is that whatever 

 reforms are instituted the headquarters of this work may somehow be 

 maintained in connection witli our universities, so as to secure that the 

 men who examine may be familiar with the current work of both school 

 and university, and, as a rule, men who either ara or have been them- 

 selves engaged as teachers. 



II. I now turn to the influence exercised through university or college 

 endowments. This part of the subject is of such importance that it 

 might advantageously be considered by a fresh university commission at 

 no very distant date, experience having shown that the reforms of pi'evious 

 commissions stand in need of some further revision. 



The system of election by merit or unrestricted open competition, 

 ridding us, as it has so largely done, of a system of patronage and privi- 

 lege and arbitrary preferences has brought great benefits to English life ; 



