USE AND ABUSE OF EXAMINATIONS. 
847 
or inspection of such school every year.* The Act is now very gene- 
rally enforced. The legal requirement specifies an alternative between 
examination and iuspection, leaving it to the school authorities which 
course to pursue. It is unusual to publish the ensuing report except 
as a mere advertisement. The common sense of boards, aided possibly 
by the reluctance of newspaper managers to burden newspaper 
columns with matter of such purely local interest, checks the publi- 
cations of these reports, which, in the case of a school as a going 
concern in a normal condition, is a dangerous and possibly a mischiev- 
ous step. The public is, on the whole, somewhat sceptical, where 
it is not censorious. It discounts approbation and exaggerates 
the effects of adverse criticism. Under these well understood 
conditions, examiners and inspectors shrink from opening their minds 
if the ultimate destination of their remarks is the columns of a news- 
paper. Reports to be minutely diagnostic should be relatively con- 
fidential; consequently, if the practice of publication prevails, boards 
do not get what they should get. I have known a man of high 
position submit two reports — one for publication and one for private 
and confidential consideration. I have known another refrain from 
mentioning serious defects as well as admitted excellencies, thinking 
it the best policy to be quite colourless. These evasions rise out of 
the habit boards frequently contract of standing by systems rather 
than by men. The framers of the regulations under the Act quoted 
above placed for the object in view inspection abreast of examination. 
Inspection is an invaluable process; it reviews the health and 
strength of the living school. A good inspector should have a quick 
mind, an experienced and chastened judgment, an observant eye. 
With these facilities and acquirements he comprehends almost at 
a glance the condition of a school. He is like a good doctor 
to whom is submitted the passing for public service of a strong, 
sound man. Such a doctor by a rapid estimate of his imme- 
diate observation grasps at once the corporal condition of his 
subject. Similarly a good inspector entering a school notes the order 
and the discipline, the relations maintained between teachers and 
taught, the efficiency of the staff, their capacity, and their knowledge. 
It is not requisite for him to be the master of the subjects handled 
by the boys ; it will suffice that he know one or two subjects very 
well, and be tolerably conversant with the elements of the remainder. 
He may not, for instance, be proficient in Trench, but he may judge 
whether a teacher is fairly proficient by observing the class under 
instruction. To convert the famous opinion of Aristotlef to the 
service of the present remarks, in teaching a class a man may be able 
*“ There shall be once in each year an inspection or examination of the scholars by 
an examiner or examiners appointed by the governors and paid by them, but otherwise 
unconnected with the school. Examiners shall make a report in writing to the 
governors on the proficiency of the scholars, and on the position of the school as 
regards instruction and discipline, as shown by the results of examination. The 
governors shall communicate to the head master or mistress the report relating to the 
school.” There is no provision in the Act for the publication of the report. 
+ Arist. Uhet. 1, 1, 11 : “Mankind has naturally a tolerable tendency to what is 
true, and generally likes the truth.”— /W. 1, vii., 28. “What everyone chooses is 
better than what some do not, while the deliberate choice of a majority is better than 
that of a minority.” 
Id. Politics 1, 11, 11 : “ The people are the best judges of the details of music, 
and the works of poets. For one man knows one little matter thoroughly, and 
another, another — and so all collectively the whole.” 
