TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 835 



however democratic we may be in our ideals, history teaches, in a manner which 

 admits of no denial, that leaders are the salt of the earth ; and in these days leaders 

 need a deal of trainino; to be effective. 



Unfortunately it too often happens that those placed in authority are the very 

 last to attempt to march with the times. Bodies such as our Universities, the 

 Education Department and the Civil Service Commissioners might have been 

 expected to lead the way, to keep the most watchful eye on all that was 

 happening, to note and apply all improvements. The very contrary has been 

 the case. As a rule, they have advanced only under severe pressure from out- 

 side, scarcely a change can be credited to tlaeir initiative. It does not seem 

 to have occurred to them that an Intelligence Department would be a desirable 

 appendage. All suffer from the fatal blot that discretion and authority are vested 

 only in a few heads of departments ; the younger and more active spirits have no 

 opportunity granted them while their minds are plastic, full of courage and 

 instinct with advance : so when the time comes that they can act they have lost 

 the desire through inanition. This is the terrible disease from which all our 

 public offices and many industries suffer. It is right to accord experience its 

 proper value, but it is wrong to put aside youthful energy and inventiveness. Our 

 American cousins owe their advance largely to the recognition of these facts. 



At bottom the spirit of commercialism is the cause of much of the contorted 

 action we complain of. Neither Cambridge nor Oxford will take the step which 

 has long been pressed upon them — and never more eloquently than by the Bishop 

 of Hereford in his paper read before this Section last year — to make theiv entrance 

 examination one which would be in accordance with our knowledge and the recoo-- 

 nised needs of the times, one which would have the effect of leading schools 

 generally to impart the rudiments of a sound general education. They cannot act 

 together and are afraid to act singly, each fearing that it would prejudice its 

 entry if it took a step in advance and in any way sought to influence the Schools. 

 The Colleges vie with each other in securing the best scholars in the hope of 

 scoring in the general competition. And the Schools have discovered that 

 successes gained in examinations are the most effective means of advertisino- ; they 

 are therefore being turned more and more into estabhshmeuts resembling those 

 engaged in the manufacture of pclte defoie gras, in which the most crammable are 

 tutored without the least consideration of the manner in wliich lifelono- mental 

 biliousness is engendered by the treatment. Parents, with strange perversity, 

 worship the success achieved by Tom and Dick, Mary and Jane, and think they 



are doing their duty by their children in allowing them to be made use of for 



private ends. The worst feature of the system is the narrow spirit of trades 

 unionism which it has engendered, which leads to the worship for ever afterwards 

 of those who have gained the prizes, instead of regarding them but as victors for 

 the moment and requiring them at each step to give fresh proof of power. 

 Nothing is more unwise than the way in which we overrate the pretensions of the 

 ' first class ' man ; we too often make a prig of him by so doing. Those who 

 succeed in examinations are too frequently not those most fitted for the work of 

 the world. Along experience has convinced me that the boys a few places down a 

 class are, as a rule, the best material. Those at the top may have acquisitive 

 power, but more often than not they lack individuitlity and the power of exer- 

 cising initiative. We must base our judgment in the future on evidence of train- 

 ing and of general conduct, not on isolated examinations. If any sincerity of 

 purpose be left in us, if any sense of the value of true training — of what constitutes 

 true training — can be rescued from the scholastic wreck on which we find our- 

 selves at present embarked, we must institute some form of leaving examination 

 which will give the requisite freedom to the schools and every opportunity for the 

 development of individuality but at the same time necessitate thoroughness of 

 training and patient regard of every grade of intelligence ; leaders will show them- 

 selves and -nail not need to be examined for. Examinations as commercial enter- 

 prises must suffer an enforced bankruptcy. 



Racing studs must be regarded as luxuries in schools and kept apart from the 

 ordinary stables, these being regarded as the first charge upon the establishment, as 



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