340 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE.—1912, 
secondary schools during the last few years. Bursars and pupil- 
teachers are over the age of sixteen at the time of their recognition as 
such, and it is not improbable that overlapping occurs more frequently 
with them than with ordinary pupils. The head-teachers were also 
asked whether they had any changes to suggest in (1) university 
regulations concerning the Matriculation Examinaticn and the Inter- 
mediate or other examinations; (2) the Board of Education’s regula- 
tions concerning bursars and pupil-teachers, or (3) the curriculum 
and organisation of secondary schools. 
Boys’ ScHoous in County Borovays. 
The schools in county boroughs are in such close proximity to a 
university, university college, or large technical institute that they are 
subject to influences which do not operate at all, or operate to a much 
smaller extent, on the majority of schools in administrative counties, 
and it seems advisable to keep the two groups distinct. 
In the newer secondary schools, supported largely or wholly by 
municipal authorities, there is stated to be no overlapping with fhe 
work of higher institutions. The maximum leaving age of these 
schools is seventeen or eighteen, but a large proportion of the pupils 
do not stay up to seventeen, and the Matriculation Examination is 
regarded as the school-leaving examination. 
The head-masters of the long-established (and usually endowed) 
schools with a leaving age of eighteen or nineteen under their governing 
scheme state that if a Matriculation Examination is taken as the 
boundary line, and the examination can be passed by a clever boy at 
the age of sixteen, or even earlier, overlapping does and must occur in 
the case of boys who remain for a full school course, i.e., up to the 
maximum age allowed. Some boys stay on for further education, 
but without any intention of proceeding to a university, and if they are 
not to waste time they must do work above matriculation standard; 
others stay in order to compete for university scholarships, and under 
existing regulations and with the somewhat high limits of age allowed, 
the standard of these competitions is much higher than that of 
matriculation, and in some instances is not far removed from the 
standard of a pass degree; others read for the Intermediate Examina- 
tions of the university to which they intend to go, and if the 
regulations permit, pass the examination before leaving school, but if 
not, they lighten their university work and materially increase their 
chance of taking an honours degree. The head-masters of these 
schools, as a whole, regard this kind of overlapping not only as 
unavoidable, but as having distinct advantages. There is practical 
unanimity of opinion that the age at which clever boys can pass the 
existing Matriculation Examinations is considerably below that at 
which they can with advantage enter a university, with its greater 
freedom from restraint. Generally, opinion seems to be in favour of 
eighteen as the minimum age for entrance at a university, but there is 
no marked evidence of any general desire to raise the minimum age 
for matriculation above sixteen, though some suggest raising it to 
seventeen. 
Many head-masters of schools of this type regard the Intermediate 
