ON THE INFLUENCE OF EXAMINATIONS. 435 



has really been taught in the School, leaving the Teachera a freer hand 

 than in the past, and arranging for their co-operation on the Examining 

 Board, in the setting of the questions and in considering the answers. 



6, The possibility of arranging so that examinations conducted on the 

 basis of papers set so as to suit individual schools, with the answers 

 marked in the first instance by the Teachers, subsequently criticised and 

 standardised by outside authority, shall serve, when passed above a certain 

 standard in a given range of subjects, as equivalent to the Entrance 

 Examination for a University or for a Profession. 



7, The extent to which certain subjects are to be regarded as neces- 

 sary and others as optional. In particular, how far do University entrance 

 examinations tend to promote a good all-round education f 



8. The suitability of the training at present given in Schools as 

 preparation for higher studies, («) at the Universities and (b) in Technical 

 Schools. 



9. The suitability of the training given in Universities and elsewhere 

 as a preparation for the teaching profession. 



The following passages taken from the various replies (fifty-six) illus- 

 trate the general character of the answers given. Provisionally names 

 are not attached to the answers, but only numbers. S indicates that the 

 opinion comes from a school ; U, that it comes from a university. 

 Thirty-five opinions are from schools, twenty-one from universities. 



1. The effect of examinations generally on school curricula. Do they, 

 on the whole, tend to direct the teaching along reasonable lines ; or do 

 they interfere with the liberty of action of schools, and check the 

 development of individuality and the power of independent thought ? 



While pointing out the many evils which attend examinations, the 

 majority take the view that in some form they are necessary. It is 

 generally recognised that there has been a marked tendency to develop 

 and improve examinations of late years. 



S 26. Examination has its place in education ; and over and above 

 this must be applied and endured as a test of relative merit and ability. 

 Educationally its value depends on just co-oi-dination with the teaching 

 given ; and the more strict and definite the limits of a subject are, the 

 more possible it is to secure such Avholesome co-ordination from an ex- 

 ternal examine!". At the present time external examinations are carried 

 to such wasteful and mischievous excess that they are doing more harm 

 than good to the advance of education, and unfortunately tell most upon 

 the best boys. 



Every pi'ofessional body appears to hold that it is forwarding educa- 

 tion, or perhaps rather satisfying self-respect and rising to its position, 

 by instituting schemes of examination and insisting on those particular 

 tests as alone valid. Every British university frames its own scheme 

 of subjects and books, to the exclusion of all others. Colleges, commis- 

 sioners, boards, and committees follow the same course in respect of 

 scholarship or admission tests. The schemes are arbitrary, conflicting, 

 and needlessly inelastic, and together make havoc of all unity in school 

 curricula. No one familiar with the whole field can place much faith 

 in the opposed and contradictory conclusions enforced by different 

 authorities. For instance, what a hotch-potch results from the place given 

 to Paley, Jevons, Greek Testament, and trigonometry at Cambridge 



F F 2 



