L.—EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 219 
candidate is refused admittance if he fails to do well in the English and 
Language papers, but does well in the other subjects. 
The next university examination is the Intermediate examination. 
The original object of such an examination was to test the progress of a 
student in his special subject of study at a university, after he had given 
evidence of a sufficient general education at the normal age of entry. In 
fact, if we agree that a university is a place where students learn to teach 
themselves, under the guidance of distinguished teachers, instead of 
learning under the strict discipline of school, the main object of an inter- 
mediate examination should be to test a student’s capacity to teach him- 
self, and therefore to satisfy the authorities that he is fit to proceed with 
a course of study leading to a degree. Nowadays, as the Matriculation 
examination or its equivalent is passed by most intending students at the 
age of fifteen or sixteen, their remaining years at school are devoted to the 
special subjects of the Intermediate which many of them pass before they 
enter the university. ‘They are encouraged to do so by university authori- 
ties. It saves us trouble, and gives the student time to acquire a larger 
stock of specialised knowledge in his undergraduate career. The next 
obvious step will be to take the degree examinations at schools, leaving 
the universities free to concentrate on postgraduate work ! 
While these changes have been taking place in school curricula, the 
standard of science entrance scholarships at universities has steadily 
risen ; and as most science scholarships go to boys who intend to study 
physics or chemistry at the university, the schools are encouraged—some 
would even say forced—against their will, to concentrate their advanced 
teaching on physics and chemistry. It is true that only a small proportion 
of the boys at any particular school intend to compete for scholarships, but it 
is impossible to segregate such boys altogether, and the standard of scholar- 
ship examinations, therefore, sets the pace for the higher school forms. 
The object of a scholarship examination is to discover the boys of 
greatest promise, not the boys who have been most successfully crammed. 
I think that schoolmasters are inclined to attach too much importance to 
the character of the papers set, and to give too little credit to the examiners 
for intelligence. It is not always the boys who get the highest marks who 
win the scholarships, and it is not so very difficult for an intelligent 
examiner to distinguish between an active and a congested brain. At 
the same time, I do agree with the criticism that the papers set are usually 
_ too difficult. There is too great an element of luck about a hard paper ; 
and first-rate ability in a candidate is shown more by the way he answers 
a question than by his knowledge of detail. I remember giving practical 
effect to these opinions when I examined in the Final Honour School of 
Chemistry at Oxford fourteen years ago. One of the two papers I set in 
physical chemistry was so apparently easy, that I feel sure that a more 
cheerful group of candidates never sat in the Examination Schools. I am 
confident, too, that there never was an occasion when an examiner found 
it easier to distinguish between the relative merits of different candidates. 
The first-class man answered the questions briefly, accurately, and to the 
point ; the second-class man wrote pages of irrelevant matter, to impress 
the examiner ; and the third-class man made elementary mistakes. 
