OVERLAPPING BETWEEN SECONDARY AND OTHER EDUCATION. 347 
at school in higher or more specialised work. Candidates for the 
higher examination would, therefore, take fewer subjects than those 
in the lower. 
Upon the specific subject of the relation between the work of 
secondary schools and that of universities the Consultative Committee 
makes the following observations :— 
“We realise that it is a great convenience that pupils in secondary 
schools who intend to proceed to a university should take, while at 
school, an examination which is accepted for matriculation purposes. 
Further, we are aware that many pupils are able to pass such an 
examination one, two, or even three years before they leave school, 
and are fit to take a more advanced examination at the end of their 
school course. It seems clear that an appropriate examination should 
be provided for such pupils. They require the stimulus that a good 
examination gives, and they deserve the credit which attaches to their 
attainments. Moreover, we see no reason why success in an examina- 
tion taken at this period of school life should not excuse a candidate 
from part of the university examinations which he would otherwise 
have been required to pass. But at the same time we feel that, for 
various reasons, there are considerable objections to the plan by which 
pupils in secondary schools take university examinations which form 
part of a degree course. In the case of Matriculation Examinations 
we think it is far preferable that pupils who are going to a university 
should take an equivalent examination which in the main is also 
suitable for the other pupils in their class. To the school use of 
subsequent degree examinations the objection is that it leads to con- 
fusion between university and school education. We are anxious to 
encourage as many pupils as possible to obtain a real university 
education, and we think that one of the main inducements to do so is 
removed if university degrees, or parts of degrees, can be secured by 
pupils in secondary schools. Boys and girls who pass an Intermediate 
Examination at school are sometimes deluded into the idea that they 
have had a university education, and both they and their parents are 
apt to think that it is not necessary to go further. We think, there- 
fore, that it is educationally unwise to allow in secondary schools any - 
university examinations which form part of the normal degree course. 
We do not, of course, wish to keep advanced pupils marking time till 
they go to the university. Some good examination of an advanced 
kind should undoubtedly be provided for them, and success in such an 
examination might well qualify them, when they reach the university, 
to take up their university studies at a more advanced point, though 
without shortening the normal period of university life. But the 
examination should really be a school examination, and should have 
nothing in its nomenclature to give a false impression of whaf it 
really is.’ 
