440 HEPORT— 1903. 



a school where intellectual effort tends to be rather despised. When 

 necessary these boys pass examinations all right afterwards, such as 

 Trinity Scholarship examinations and triposes. We never have to 

 ' produce results,' so give all our time to educating the boys. 



U C. Effect on the whole good— a great help to the head master in 

 resisting pressure put upon him by parents and amateurs. 



U 7. While recognising the evils of the system is forced to recognise 

 its very great merits as a most useful instrument in proper hands. 



U 11. The Oxford and Cambridge Board examinations have had a 

 beneficial effect upon school curricula : they have («) made teaching and 

 learning more methodical, (b) widened the scope of school studies, (c) 

 brought important instruments on education into general use. 



U 13. However reasonable the schedule of an examination maybe, 

 the preparation of candidates for it, in my opinion, checks development 

 of individuality in both teacher and pupil. If a teacher has a special 

 interest in some part of the work, and by his interest awakens that of 

 his pupils, he is nec>»s.sarily pulled up by the feeling that his students 

 have to be prepared for the examination and the points in which both 

 teacher and pupils are interested have to be left. 



Far too much energy is wasted in England in setting and looking 

 over examination papers. 



U 18. The tendency has been steadily for improvement — they do now 

 on the whole offer a reasonable scheme of work. Boy nature being what 

 it is, a great step is taken when a motive has been suggested for indi- 

 vidual and unassisted effort. This motive has been supplied by examina- 

 tions. It is not, however, a good thing for schools — when it can be 

 avoided — to depend for support on the results of a particular examina- 

 tion. The effect is almost inevitably that teaching is narrowed and 

 everything neglected which does not 'pay.' Where this arrangement is 

 rendered necessary by circumstances it is most important that such 

 examinations should be as wide, liberal, and varied as possible, and that 

 every effort should be made to secure that the papers set .should offer as 

 little scope for ' cramming ' as possible ; and as, after all, the skill of the 

 crammer is pretty sure to be a match for the examiner, such examinations 

 should be, at any rate in part, viva voce, by which method such teaching 

 is most readily detected. With this precaution I do not think an 

 examination need ' check the development of individuality and the power 

 of independent thought.' 



U 19. If sufficiently broad and conducted by examiners of experience 

 need not check individuality, &c. On the whole advantageous as stimu- 

 kting effort ; often a means of enabling the schoolmaster to judge whether 

 his work is in line with that of other schools. 



2. The effect of specific examinations, both as affecting general training 

 and as encouraging undue specialisation, either on the humanistic or the 

 scientific side. 



Very little difference of opinion exists on this subject. 



S 26. Scholarship examinations do certainly bring irresistible pressure 

 to bear in favour of early and injudicious specialisation. So far as scholar- 

 ships go the classical boy does well to discard all mathematics, modern 

 languages, or science ; the mathematician to renounce classics and modern 

 languages, &c. For this I see no remedy short of a complete change of 

 system, which is impracticable. Examiners approach their subject as 



