714 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 
regarded as prizes, not as eleemosynary endowments. As a step towards creating 
a public conscience in the matter, why should not the face-value of scholarships 
be reduced to, say, the amount of the tuition fee, and only increased on the 
application of the parent ? This would be a matter for private negotiation, and 
would leave no stigma of poverty on thescholar. The moral effect of sucha reform, 
if required by general statutory enactment, would probably be great. 
(11) Educational.—Scholarships are offered by the public schools in order to 
attract clever boys who will win honours later on at the universities and else- 
where. The system encourages early specialisation, especially inclassics. Hence 
an undue proportion of the time-table in preparatory schools is devoted to Latin 
and Greek. 
Scholarship examinations are at present the only public test of work and 
teaching in these schools; they set a standard, and so render important service. 
On the other hand, they dictate the curriculum for all boys, dull as well as clever, 
The latter can always take care of themselves; but for boys of small linguistic 
ability, the curriculum is overburdened with languages, and is therefore one- 
sided and unsatisfactory. It should be framed from the point of view of the boy 
whose aptitudes have to be discovered, ¢.c., provide for many-sided interest. This 
is good policy for the scholar, and essential for the boy of average ability. 
Ordinary abilities, backed by moral qualities, do some of the world’s best work ; 
we cannot therefore afford to neglect them in favour of specially-gifted boys. 
The time necessary for a wise readjustment of the curriculum can only be 
found by postponem-nt of Greek and Latin verse. This might be done without 
any violent changes of methods and standards. And it is necessary to ‘ hasten 
slowly,’ for there are rocks ahead in the question of the supply of properly 
qualitied teachers. 
6. The Scholarship System at Oxford and Cambridge. 
By H. B. Baxer, W.A., D.Sc., FLR.S. 
The present system of open scholarships at the older universities owes its 
existence to Richard Jenkyns, Master of Balliol 1819-1854, Until about eighty 
years ago help was given to students in two ways. There were scholarships, 
confined to particular schools, districts, or families, and there were servitorships 
or sizarships, the holders of which did not necessarily possess very high intellectual 
qualifications, but who were essentially poor men. Jenkyns’s system was the 
offering of scholarships, after a competitive examination, to schoolboys without 
any reference to the question as to whether the money was or was not needed for 
their university education. The status of scholars was improved, and they were 
made to rank in the college immediately after the fellows. In a short time many 
of the most brilliant boys in public schools were attracted to the universities, and, 
what was more important, there was an improvement in the work of the schools, 
which benefited not only the prospective scholars, but also the rank and file of the 
school. The competition for open scholarships is perhaps keener in our own day 
than it has ever been, and the success of a school is now gauged, quite wrongly in 
my opinion, by the number of open scholarships it can claim at the end of the 
school year. 
It has been several times suggested during the last few years that the 
scholarship system involves a great waste of money, and schemes have been 
proposed which, while retaining the stimulus of competition, give the money only 
where it is needed. This seems the only logical position, and were the question 
as simple as it sounds few would hesitate to adopt one or other of the solutions. 
The most recent of these proposals is briefly this, that all entrance scholarships 
should be of the value of 40/, a year, and that they should only be increased when 
the parent could prove that the increase was necessary. On the face of it the 
proposal seems reasonable, with the one exception that the giving of 40/. a year 
to a scholar who does not need it seems a half-hearted measure. 
Exaggerated statements of the waste of money given in scholarships are so 
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