220 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 
It is not so easy as it may seem, however, to change the standard of 
scholarship examinations, and thereby to encourage a broader education. 
About a year ago we decided to review our policy at the Imperial College. 
Students come to the College with science scholarships from many 
sources ; but the chief sources are the Board of Education, who award 
Royal Scholarships tenable only at the College as well as State scholar- 
ships tenable at any university in England and Wales ; the London County 
Council; and the College itself. For the past five years our scholarship 
examinations have been held in January at the suggestion of a group of 
headmasters of public schools, who advised that by doing so we should 
attract better candidates. We have not found this borne out by results ; 
we have not had enough good candidates in any year since the change to 
justify us in awarding the full number of scholarships ; and many of the 
better candidates have subsequently competed for and gained Royal 
Scholarships or State Scholarships which are higher in value. Our general 
experience leads us to believe that very few, if any, students of first-rate 
ability, who have specialised in science at school, are prevented from going 
to a university for lack of financial assistance. On the other hand, we 
believe that no scholarships are deliberately made available to assist able 
students who have not specialised in science at school to study science at a 
university. We have therefore decided to make the experiment of chang- 
ing the character of our January scholarship examination. We propose 
to set papers in General Science and Mathematics of quite a low standard, 
together with papers of a higher standard in History, Foreign Languages 
and English. The details are not yet settled; but headmasters and head- 
mistresses were notified of the change this year, and their criticism and 
co-operation were invited. The scheme has had a mixed reception. 
We have received many encouraging, but many critical letters. Much 
of the criticism can be summed up by the phrase, actually used—‘ It 
would not suit my Sixth, and I should not alter my Sixth to suit it.’ Now 
schoolmasters cannot haveit both ways ; they cannot say, on the one hand, 
that they are forced to specialise unduly at schools by the standard set by 
examiners for science scholarships, and, on the other hand, that they do not 
propose to make any change if university authorities listen to their 
criticisms. We intend to go on with the experiment, without any great 
hopes of the result ; someone must make a start, and the most unpromising 
experiments have often given surprisingly good results. At the same time, 
I fully realise that what one particular college does cannot solve the diffi- 
culties of the schools. If it is really the general view that the school 
education of a student of science is too narrow, then the best practical 
step is to reform the University Matriculation examination, and make 
it appropriate to the normal age of entry. If one of the larger universities 
did this, the effect would be considerable. If it is not considered worth 
while, then criticism of the general education of the science student loses 
most of its point. 
I have put before you some problems of the present ; I want now, before 
I conclude, to touch briefly on a problem of the future. 
