56 
A Plea for Freedom. 
examination papers should be divided into sections of equal value, 
in any one of which a student may satisfy the examiners, according 
to his personal bias. Naturally a much higher standard could thus 
be demanded from a student in each particular section, while a 
direct encouragement would be given to originality and talent in 
the teacher, which might result in definitely characterised schools, 
on the antique model, springing up, based on the personality of 
their greatest teacher and moulded by his tradition, but retaining 
their plasticity. This is simply a return to a more primitive 
ordering of affairs, calculated to prevent the danger of schism, since 
that is in inverse proportion to the elasticity of the bonds holding 
a community together, and also allowing unfettered power of 
development to those who reject the present order. 
Rigid control and forced systematization are the greatest errors 
in science and art, or indeed in any of the manifestations of that 
essentially irregular creature, man. 1 am all for diversity. I can 
never consent to a dragooned uniformity on one side or the other. 
1 support with all my heart the cause of compromise and rational 
balance, but I condemn with abhorrence the demand of any one 
section of opinion to impose its limitations upon the whole body of 
the science. 
1 am, Sir, 
Yours, etc., 
R. C. McLEAN. 
