468 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. IX., No. 223 



memory without thought, or make their papers a 

 field for the exhibition of their own cleverness 

 and their own peculiar theories (without con- 

 sidering what may rightly be expected from the 

 young men or boys examined, and what is there- 

 fore likely really to test their knowledge and 

 capacity), simply court failure. There seems to be 

 too little appreciation of the exceeding difficulty 

 of the task of thorough examination. Examiners 

 are burdened with a mass of work which they 

 cannot get through except in a perfunctory man- 

 ner, and which even then so utterly wearies them 

 out, that this faculty of judgment and comparison 

 is lost. They themselves sometimes seem to act 

 as if any thing would do for an examination 

 paper, and, unless they are strangely belied, are 

 far from preserving a uniform standard in their 

 arbitrary and irrevocable decisions. But the 

 fault lies, not in the principle, but in the admin-, 

 istration. It is remedied, not by giving up exami 

 nations, but by examining better." 



In the address before referred to. Dr. Birdwood 

 expressed the views held, then and now, by a 

 considerable class, when, after drawing an ideal 

 picture of the lamentable effects of this so-called 

 system of cramming upon the Indian civil ser- 

 vice, he boldly proposes, as a remedy, to hand over 

 all the appointments to the universities and the 

 public schools. This advice is doubtless consist- 

 ent. If the knowledge which it is at present 

 necessary for candidates to acquire, over and 

 above that which they can obtain at the public 

 schools, is only so much useless rubbish, unfitting 

 instead of fitting them for the sphere in which 

 they have to act, then the sooner it is dispensed 

 with, the better. But it is difficult to discover 

 where the gravamen of the accusation lies. The 

 fact that a special education of a higher order 

 than that which the public schools will give is re- 

 quired by the civil-service commissioners is ob- 

 vious enough ; but it is not easy to see how a 

 better education can make a man worse : it cer- 

 tainly cannot be proved to do so by giving it an 

 uncouth name. The rapid strides of science, and 

 its intimate relation to all civilization and progress 

 at the present day, led the commissioners to recog- 

 nize the truth that a wider foundation than here- 

 tofore had to be laid for the education of those 

 who are destined to take active service in the 

 field. For the mere onlookers, a liberal education, 

 according to the ideas of the old regime, may suf- 

 fice. The public schools may remain faithful to 

 the traditions of the past, and continue to insist 

 that two dead languages constitute for all time 

 the one necessary and sufficient basis for the com- 

 plete education of the Anglo-Saxon. But the 

 world will not stand still forever to worship this 



ancient 'idol of the den.' The movement which 

 has resulted in draining, year after year, some of 

 the best blood from our public schools, is but the 

 beginning of a process which will ere long leave 

 them dry and lifeless, if they persist in disregard- 

 ing the signs of the times. It would be as useful 

 to make teclinical botany, geology, or chemistry 

 the universal substratum of school-education, as 

 the Latin and Greek tongues ; for the average 

 school-boy never gets beyond the dead symbol of 

 the language, which bears no fruit for him. The 

 philosophy of history, the poetry, wisdom, and 

 learning of the ancients, all that constitutes the 

 hidden life of such studies, is lost to him through 

 the obscurity of the medium. Neither can he ar- 

 rive at this knowledge in such a way, any more 

 than the ear can arrive at sweet sounds by 

 learning the rules of harmony and thorough bass. 

 And just at the time when those studies might 

 begin to educate, in the true sense of the word, 

 they are laid aside forever. 



The charge of specialty and inutility which has 

 been brought against the civil-service examinations 

 is singularly inappropriate. We find the follow- 

 ing astounding statement : " The training rf?quired 

 (that is, for the civil-service examinations) was 

 absolutely injurious, and was good only for the 

 competitive examination itself, and worthless for 

 all else beyond as well as below it. To fail in the 

 examination was bankruptcy in purse, in mind, 

 and in soul." Now, since the subjects in which 

 the specialty consists are almost wholly comprised 

 under the heads of modern languages, literature, 

 and some of the chief branches of physical sci- 

 ence, — subjects the knowledge of which forms 

 the very life-blood of our social and commercial 

 systems, — it is impossible to conceive that the 

 circumstance of having paid more than ordinary 

 attention to such branches of study could unfit a 

 young man for making his own unaided way in 

 the world, after having failed to secure a civil- 

 service appointment. In fact, the argument, such 

 as it is, recoils with tenfold force upon the public 

 schools with which the comparison is instituted. 

 It is there that the course of education pursued is 

 special, and the results comparatively worthless. 

 It is there that subjects which are of use only to 

 the man of letters, or the professional Knguist, 

 are dragged into undue prominence, and made to 

 form the staple of the instruction offered, without 

 discrimination, to all. If the hypothetical youth 

 who has been early stranded in life had just left 

 a public school, he would perhaps have acquired 

 a facility in writing execrable Latin hexameters, 

 or in making equally bad translations of Euripides ; 

 but in the elementary knowledge useful in a score 

 of professions he would be utterly and hopelessly 



