504 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 
of the forms. But he thinks that much may be done by an alteration 
in the system of matriculation examination, which sets the standard 
at the public schools. He would make this consist of two parts: an 
examination coming at about the age of sixteen and well within the 
reach of a boy of ordinary intelligence and industry, and comprising 
the ordinary subjects of school curriculum at this age; he would then 
let the boy leave the subjects from which he is not likely to get much 
further profit and begin to specialize for the remaining two or three 
years, say, in two subjects, which would then be the material of the 
second examination. In this way they would make a wholly fresh start 
at a critical age, and he thinks that the bulk of the boys would probably 
find this a great advantage. , 
I quote this opinion because it shows that an experienced school- 
master regards it as highly desirable that at a certain period in a school- 
boy’s career a real change should be made in his curriculum, and I have 
expressly stated that I find it difficult to express an opinion upon this 
particular educational period. 
What should be the exact nature of the teaching before and after 
the age of sixteen or seventeen for the mass of ordinary boys I would 
prefer to leave to the decision of those who are best able to judge. 
I think it highly probable that there should be a considerable alteration 
of curriculum at the critical age. But, if a break and change of subject 
are required at this age, I believe that a yet more complete change is 
required at the later stage when the boy goes to the university, and that 
school methods should then be entirely replaced by university methods 
not because there is then a natural change in the mental powers of 
the student, but because it is the obvious stage at which to make the 
change if we are to abandon preparatory training at all. Should it be 
proposed that the change ought to be made at sixteen, and that after 
that age something of the nature of university methods should be grad- 
ually introduced, my fear is that this would only lead to the perpetua- 
tion of school methods at the university. 
An interesting question which deserves to be very seriously consid- 
ered is the question, What sort of school education affords the best 
preparatory training for the university? I have often heard it asserted 
that, if a boy is capable of taking up at the university a course which is 
entirely different from his school course, he will generally be found to 
have come from the classical side and not from the modern side. An 
ordinary modern-side boy is rarely able to pursue profitably a literary 
career at the university, whereas it often happens that ordinary classical- 
side boys make excellent scientific students after they have left school. 
I am bound to say that this is, on the whole, my own experience. It 
suggests that a literary education at school is at present a better intel- 
lectual training for general university work than a scientific education. 
Tf this be so, what is the reason ? 
