Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/817

Rh physical hygiene who can detect the first symptoms of morbid anxiety, and will have authority enough with the pupil to enforce exercise, proper diet, and mental relaxation. If the mind cannot rest, it must hive a change of occupa tion. The most important examinations are those which lead to university emoluments, and those by which candidates are selected for the civil service and the army. A clever youth, destined for the university, is at present subjected to examinations from the age of 14 to 23 or 24. First he is brought on at a preparatory school, to compete for a scholarship at one of the large schools. The credit of his schoolmaster is involved in his success, and great pains are taken with the candidates. Usually the examiners understand boys, and the papers are set with judgment : but a boy at 1 4 should be extending the roots of his knowledge, not arranging it for display; and if he be trained in order to have something to show, there is a danger that solidity may be sacrificed to the early production of results. An examiner taking a school unawares, and questioning the boys, would probably detect the cleverest without doing any harm ; but when boys work up to papers, even if they are carefully set, there is a danger of their developing the fatal facility of remembering words with little care for ideas, which belongs to their age. It is said that those who are elected scholars often seem to fall off at first. They have worked under pressure, and the pressure is removed. They most commonly, however, rally for the next contest, which is that for open scholarships at the university. The examinations for these are now almost always in special branches of knowledge, classics, or mathematics, and natural science. The colleges too often aim at securing, not the youth who is well-educated all round, but one who is likely to obtain a high degree in a school of uni versity honours. They want men of power ; and special distinction is held to be the best criterion of this. School masters often grieve over the necessity of having to put a boy apart to be prepared for the classical or mathematical market; but the public looks in the newspapers for notices of scholarships gained, and a school which may do admirable work with the staple of its boys will yet be carped at if wanting in university success. Boys are hawked from college to college till they find one which will give the price, that is to say, a scholarship of the value which the parent or master thinks the boy ought to fetch. Of these youths many have little taste for things intellectual, but they have hard heads, and a keen desire to get a scholarship, without which, their friends will not send them to the university. By diligent work they may get such a place in a class list as can be won without special ability. Some, of course, are of a higher order, and of a perfectly satisfactory description; and others, on the withdrawal of the pressure that was on them at school, or under their tutors, turn idle and disappoint their purchasers. At Cambridge, unless the students are at Trinity College, the &quot; tripos &quot; brings their examinations to an end. At Trinity College and at Oxford an examination by the college is held for fellowships. There are thus two systems for awarding these, that of special examinations, and that of being guided by the university honours obtained. It is in favour of the first that it gives two or three chances, and that, by affording a long period from the first admission to the university, it enables a young man to retrieve himself if his early education has been mismanaged by his friends. In some casss, too, very good work is done in the intervening years, but for this to be the case the candidate must not be anxious about the examinations. Those who profit in this way are those who may reckon pretty certainly on success. Against this special ex amination it is urged that it retains men in pupilage up to 24 or 25, that with many it is a question whether their chance is worth the investment of the time, and that it gives an advantage to the richer men who can study at leisure, while the poorer must support themselves at schools or by private pupils. We now come to Government competitive examinations, such as those for the army and civil service. The object of the system was twofold. First of all it was desired to get rid of patronage, with the solicitation and trouble at tending it, and, secondly, to secure the ablest men which the situations can command. The first object, no doubt, is attained, and is well worth attaining ; with regard to the second, experience seems to show that the system answers quite satisfactorily for the army, and moderately so for the civil service. The reasons of the difference are that the pay in the army is not sufficient to attract those who have no turn for the profession, or who are deficient in the traditional qualities or bearing of the British officer. This examination also is the less distracting of the two, because the number of subjects that may be taken up, both in the case of the ordnance corps and of the line, is limited, and a preponderance is given to those subjects which furnish faculties over those which result in information. If by these examinations we had to pick out 10 men out of 500, the mechanism would be too rough for the purpose ; but if we have to take 50, we get down to the great plateau of mediocrity, where we find a batch of can didates nearly on a level; and even if the sixtieth man were to be a trifle better than the fiftieth, either of them would be good enough for the purpose. The English Government encountersa particular difficulty in such examinations, because there is no uniform national system of education as in Prussia, and advantage must not be given to particular schools. This makes it necessary to allow a wide option of subjects, and the result is that, candidates will take, not what is best for them to know, but what will bring most &quot; marks &quot; within a given period of study. The tutor has to invest the pupil s time in that study which promises best for his score. This is not satisfactory to the educationalist, but as a fact, if these youths were not getting up their modicum of zoology or electricity, they would probably be doing nothing better. The money value of an Indian appointment attracts many youths of a different class from those who seek for com missions; these may be wanting in the qualities which are required to command the respect of Hindus, and they may regard their career too narrowly as an investment of brains and labour for which they expect a good return. Physical accomplishments might be allowed to carry some weight, and be required as a qualification. The next class to be considered are &quot; pass examinations.&quot; These are important from the large number of men they affect. By a pass examination we mean one in which the leading object is to ensure a certain standard. It does not follow that some credit may not be obtained by doing well; indeed, for the healthy operation of the examination it is desirable that those who pass should be classified alpha betically in three or four classes. The objects of a pass examination are to sift out incapacity, and to ascertain that the candidates have gone through a certain process of edu cation. The pass examinations of universities, both in England and in France, were until lately framed on a wrong principle. It was thought that the examinations should comprise a specimen of every kind of knowledge that an educated man should possess. If the graduate should prove ignorant of any such branch, the university, it was thought, could absolve itself from responsibility by showing that he had known it at one time. Now, however, we recognize the fact that these scraps of knowledge soon disappear. The portion of chemistry or history which the candidate has