Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/815

Rh EXAMINATIONS 779 just the information suited for their examination in a very short time, from an analysis or tutor s note book, and forget much in a few days. This power of &quot;getting up&quot; and &quot; carrying &quot; is not without practical value. It is the power which enables a lawyer to master a mass of details, and we may allow credit for this, for it shows a good analytical memory ; but it must be observed that what is thus rewarded is not so much a knowledge of the special branch of study as a power of acquiring, which very probably might be applied to one subject as well as another. It requires great experience and judgment in an examiner to deal with subjects like history and literature. He must have an eye for the cardinal points, and must know how a student ought to hold things together in his mind. If he yield to Ihe temptation which seems to beset examiners of picking out &quot; things not generally known,&quot; and minute details which a wise man is content to leave to be looked up when he wants them, then a kind of artificial knowledge, solely for use in examinations, will be engendered. In this class of subjects the profit obtained by the student is not proportionate to his recollection of what he has learned, and yet it is this recollection only which can be accurately measured. A student may have got good from his reading, and yet be able to do little even in a paper that is well set ; because for an examination the subject must not only be read, it must be &quot;got up.&quot; The studies, on the other hand, which enable one to &quot; do &quot; something supply a power that is always at hand. A classical scholar can at any moment translate a passage. This difference is very important. &quot; Information subjec f s &quot; burden the memory and give rise to &quot; cram &quot; more than the others; besides, a faculty cannot be lost in a few months and information may. The more, therefore, that a competitive examination can be made to turn on &quot; faculty subjects the better. Information subjects can be dealt with more satisfactorily when competitions, which should be confined to an early age, are over, and the student is fitting himself for the work of life. He will read them most profitably when he feels that he wants the information, not for display, but for practical use. Examinations, of course, tell us little directly about moral qualities ; industry, indeed, they reward, but the work pro duced may have been done under the strong incentive of eagerness for success, or under compulsion, or in the absence of temptation, and under other circumstances the candidate s zeal may flag. Energy and tastes go far to make a man what he is, and of these examinations tell us nothing. A course of examinations tells something more as to steadiness of purpose and growth of mind than a single one, and a person who follows up an unusual kind of study such as till lately natural science was has probably a genuine taste for it. It makes all the difference to the teacher whether the examination is subordinate to the teaching, or the teaclr.ng to the examination. In the first case he is really the educator he lays down the course he thinks best. In the second he carries out a course which may leave him 110 option; and even if it embrace alternative subjects, these must often be chosen for the marks they will bring in the time allowed rather than for the good they will do the pupil. On the other hand, if a teacher s work is not sub ject to some external test, he may get careless, and neglect to keep himself abreast of the progress of science and of the art of teaching. Of course no public advantages could be granted to a certificate given to candidates by their own teacher, when his interest lay in getting them through. If he were independent, like an authorized public teacher, he might be trusted, but he would then be a perma nent examiner, and his style would soon be understood. There must, however, be some correspondence between the teaching and the examination, especially on subjects which can be treated in different ways. If a professor, for example, occupy himself with the textual criticism of a book, and the examiner ask no question on this, student* will neglect the lecture. Hence, the public teacher should be in communication with the examiner, or form one of a body of examiners. In Germany the difficulty is solved in this way. At the &quot; abiturient &quot; examination the teachers in a gymnasium propose two questions in each subject ; of these the Govern ment inspector chooses one, and this the candidates who are leaving for the university answer on paper. The errors iu the answers are marked by the masters, and the papers so marked are considered by the inspector, who, along with the school authorities, and with some reference to the pupil s work in school, decides on his fitness for leaving the gymnasium. The two functions of testing acquirements and of direct ing and stimulating instruction do not act always along the same lines, and the examiner and teacher may therefore pull different ways. If the examiner wants to pick out the sharpest lad in a school he will give great weight to any thing that shows brilliancy. Excellence, too, in any one de partment is a far better sign of power than mediocrity in many. But the teacher does not want the clever boy to rely on his facility in Latin verses or to give himself up to his favourite study, and will make the examination turn on the general school work. He will set questions in the parts of the subjects which involve drudgery, in order to enforce attention to them. Propositions in Euclid and questions on elementary grammar may have no effect in dis criminating between two clever boys ; yet these questions must be set if Euclid and grammar are to be learnt. Again, an examiner may only want to see that the can didate has a certain knowledge, namely, that which is required in the situation in prospect. He may want to see, for instance, that arithmetical questions can be worked correctly ; if this can be done he may not care how the know ledge was got, all he wants being the fact that it is there. But a boy may be taught to do sums by the old mechani cal rules, and this kills the reason instead of developing it. The educator is teaching the boy by means of Euclid, arithmetic, and the rest, rather than teaching him Euclid and arithmetic for their value as possessions. He will therefore frame his paper so as to show that the boy has gone through the processes of study which he wants to en courage ; his questions will involve principles. His paper may not gauge powers of computation so well as one con- taininga number of intricate sums to be done in a short time, but it shows whether the boy in learning arithmetic has used his brains. Examinations are effective in three principal ways as regards education. First, they act as stimulants, partly by holding out the prospect of advantages of some sort, and partly by appealing to the combative spirit in human nature and the desire to excel. Stimulants are valuable iu our pharmacopoeia, though liable to be used too freely. Youths who might sink into inertness are often roused to vigour by seeing a definite object to work for, or by finding themselves engaged in a contest. On the other hand, if the idea of gain is presented to young people too early, it may over-ride all other motives, such as duty and regard for authority and desire to learn. To those who have been habituated to examinations, it seems useless to work for anything in which they are not going to be examined, and the examinations will not act as a stimulus unless some thing is to be got by them. Hence competitive examina tions should not be often repeated ; a single comprehensive one at the end of a lung course may do good, but it must not be kept always immediately iu view. The pupil