27 



this plan is at all events preferable to the external examination 

 system where, as Thring puts it, — "Teaching is not possible if 

 an inspector is coming to count the number of bricks made to 



order The inspector destroys teaching because he 



examines by pattern, and the perfection of teaching is that it 

 does not work by pattern Minds cannot be in- 

 spected, minds cannot be produced as specimens on a board with 

 a pin stuck through them like beetles." An intelligent public 

 can be its own school inspector. It would have better encour- 

 agement to become so in these countries if authority did not 

 assume that it is a public too incapable, and its school teachers 

 too dishonest, to be trusted alone together. 



The Duke of Argyll :— " Payment by results sounds unas- 

 sailably excellent, until we remember that everything must 

 depend on the kind of " results " which are secured. So far as 

 primary education is concerned, I fear that evidence is accumu- 

 lating to the effect that the " results " arising are — (i) an over- 

 burdened memory, (2) a weakened brain, (3) an early withdrawal 

 from all discipline of education, — an early withdrawal from 

 school altogether." 



Principal J. V. Jones, M.A., University College of South 

 Wales : — " In the examination of Intermediate Schools in Ireland 

 there is a system of direct payment on the individual pass, as 

 in the Science and Art examinations. This is pernicious in 

 connexion with intermediate education, and ought to be swept 

 away. The evidence is that it exercises a bad effect on the Irish 

 schools." 



Sir Sydney Waterlow, Bart.: — "The system of payment by 

 results has, I believe, been most injurious as a whole to the 

 young men and young girls who have been educated in our 

 middle and upper class schools during the last twenty years. 

 As chairman of the board of governors of a large 

 school in Westminster (800 day boys and 200 boarders), I have 

 for more than fifteen years, taken the greatest interest in its 

 management and progress. I can testify to the general im- 

 provement in the education of all the boys since the head master 

 was prevented from competing for result money." 



