466 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. IX., No. 223 



mathematical, he can never enter the temple of 

 science at all. At best he can take but a cursory 

 peep. I am well aware that the world gets along 

 by compromise, and I have no objection to a year 

 or so being devoted to the mere instruments with- 

 in the walls of a university ; but let it be under- 

 stood, that, even when we accept this, we must 

 yet demand a much higher qualification in the 

 matriculant than we do now. After a year spent 

 among the instruments, the student, at the age of 

 about nineteen, should be in a position to throw 

 himself into real studies, — philology, philosophy, 

 history, literature, art, physical science. To take 

 the encyclopedic round would be impossible now- 

 adays ; but by the thorough investigation of a 

 department he gains admission to the idea, and 

 becomes a scientific thinker. Discipline in one 

 department, properly understood and properly pur- 

 sued, is discipline in all. He thereby attains to 

 that reverence for all knowledge, and that large 

 philosophical comprehension, which is the con- 

 summation of all true self-disciphne. Thus it is 

 that the mere intellect becomes permeated by the 

 emotions which lie at the heart of all ideals, and 

 becomes itself ideal and universal in its personal 

 aims. This is what culture truly means. 



Too briefly for the great subject, but not too 

 briefly, I trust, for understanding, I have indicated 

 the function of the university in education. Out 

 of it the equipped man issues to encounter the 

 buffets of life, and do the work which his hand 

 findeth to do ; but he can never forget that he has 

 enrolled himself a citizen of the city of reason, 

 and that he is a freeman of it by divine right. 



All stages of educational progress you will, I 

 trust, see gain their true significance, from their 

 genuine ethical outcome, — their contribution to 

 harmonious inner life, and harmonious outer liv- 

 ing- S. S. Laurie. 



COMPETITIVE EXAMINATIONS.^ 



The subject which I have chosen for this even- 

 ing's discussion you will probably regard as a well- 

 worn one. But the working of examinations has 

 now undergone the test of a lengthened trial ; and 

 much of the controversy respecting their educa- 

 tional value, which raged some ten years ago, has 

 in a great measure subsided. 



It therefore occurred to me that a retrospective 

 view of what has been said or written by advo- 

 cates on both sides of the question might be use- 

 ful, if taken in the light of our accumulated ex- 

 perience. 



It will be in the memory of most of us, that, 



■ From the Educational times, April 1. A paper read 

 before the College of preceptors. 



between the years 1870 and 1880, our magazines 

 teemed with articles on the subject ; and there is 

 so much that is suggestive and worth recording, 

 that I must crave your indulgence for making fre- 

 quent extracts from different papers. According 

 as writers were interested in maintaining the old 

 public-school system of education, or the system 

 supported by the modern examination coach and 

 so-called ' crammer,' they ranged themselves 

 against or in favor of competitive examina- 

 tions. 



Some of the arguments hurled at the concoctors 

 and upholders of the examination system were the 

 following : — 



Examinations led to cramming on the part of the 

 candidates ; i.e., preparation by pure memory- 

 work, leading to a parrot-like acquaintance with 

 facts and phrases, and even this knowledge quite 

 transitory, learned for the purpose of the exami- 

 nation, and forgotten as soon as it was over. 



The reasoning-powers were said to be stultified 

 by disuse. 



Imagination and originality were crushed. 

 The strain of competition would undermine the 

 health of the young. 



The artificial stimulus of competition would 

 take the place of a healthy love of study for its 

 own sake, and, when withdrawn, the genuine in- 

 terest in work would never return. 



In the Indian civil service the result would be 

 that the worst candidates would be selected, and 

 the best rejected. 



On the other hand, the advocates of examina- 

 tions contested these points one by one, and main- 

 tained the opposite conclusions. They affirmed 

 that the competition and rivalry excited was a 

 positive good in the training of the young ; that, 

 to make a great struggle for a place in an exami- 

 nation, even but once in a lifetime, was itself an 

 education to a naturally indolent mind ; that the 

 system afforded the only method, free from chance 

 or favoritism, of selecting candidates for innumer- 

 able appointments in life. They also maintained 

 (and not without reason) that prizes for learning, 

 and orders of merit, advanced the character of the 

 teaching given to the whole of a school. 



Amongst the opponents of the system, we find 

 Dr. Birdwood, in an address before the Society of 

 arts about the year 1873, — an address indorsed 

 and eulogized by the Standard in a leading article 

 at that time, — denounced the army and civil ser- 

 vice tutors as " a gang of examiners, and the di- 

 rectors of the new East India competitive exami- 

 nation Dodge company." But in this anathema 

 it is clear that he ought to have included the civil- 

 service commissioners, who are the real directors 

 of those examinations. 



