L.— EDUCATION. 247 



science, which was eloquently expressed by 8ir Uichard Gregory at Hull 

 iu 1922, has not yet received the practical appreciation in schools that 

 it deserves. 



With your permission I will give the results of my observations as 

 judicially as possible ; for, in spite of my limited experience in practical 

 teaching, I do not feel inclined to be dogmatic. 



Someone has given the appropriate name ' tandem system ' to a 

 form of curriculum in which the students are limited to one main subject, 

 and one subject only, at a time. As an essential characteristic of this 

 system the examination, which is final so far as the course is concerned, 

 is taken immediately at the end of the course and before the next subject 

 is taken up. 



So far as I know, there is only one institution of university rank in this 

 country in which this kind of curriculum is observed with any approach 

 to rigidity, and that is the Imperial College at South Kensington, where 

 it is still followed in the Royal College of Science and Royal School of 

 Mines. The introduction of the system there is generally attributed to 

 the late Professor Huxley ; at any rate, the supposed virtues of the system 

 were recognised and enforced during his tenure of oiiice as Dean of the 

 two joint colleges. 



In the normal course for the diploma during Huxley's time, the student 

 devoted his first half -session entirely to Chemistry, Part I ; that is approxi- 

 mately the Pass standard of the ordinary B.Sc. He had one lecture each 

 morning, spent the rest of the day in the laboratory, and in February took 

 what was for that ' part ' his final examination. During the second half- 

 session the student was similarly confined to Physics, taking his final for 

 Part I in June. 



The second year was similarly taken in two halves, and then the 

 student specialised in his main subject for the third year ; but even in 

 his third year Parts II and III, being distinct branches, were taken sepa- 

 rately, with a final examination for the part at the end of each half-year. 

 Thus, after the entrance examination or matriculation, the student took 

 four main subjects of Pass standard, one of which was Part I of the 

 third-year subject of a more specialised or Honours standard. 



The only departure from this simple life was due to attendance for 

 any necessary repairs and improvements required in Mathematics above 

 that taken at the entrance examination. It was indeed a simple life, 

 summed up in the approximately accurate formula — ' One lecture each 

 day ; one subject one term.' 



It is not necessary to trace the evolutionary history of the model 

 commonly adopted for the ordinary university curriculum. The structure 

 of any such course is in all essential respects similar to that of the ordinary 

 secondary-school curriculum in requiring the consumption of two, three, 

 or more subjects simultaneously. The graded ' forms ' at school are 

 continued under another terminology in the university — matriculation, 

 intermediate, and degree final, or other local equivalents. The top of the 

 school column and the lower grades at the university overlap one another 

 in standard, and to various extents are interchangeable. 



It will be sufficient to take as a fairly representative sample the 

 regulations at any of the younger or so-called provincial universities. At 



