Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/500

494 school course nor to the university course; if it is taken at the age of sixteen the remainder of the school career tends to be devoted to university work, which should not really be done at school; if it is taken after leaving school this means that work is being done at, or in connection with, the university which ought to be done at school. It is certainly true that for various reasons a vast deal of education is now being carried on at the universities which should belong to school life, and moreover is being carried on by methods which are identical with those pursued at school. It is equally true that, owing to the early age at which matriculation examinations or their equivalents may be taken, many schools are now asking that at the age of eighteen or nineteen a school examination may be held which shall be an equivalent not for matriculation, but for the first-degree examination at the university. This would really imply that schools should be recognized as doing university work for two years of their pupils' careers—surely a most illogical procedure and one which supports my contention that there is now very serious overlapping, for it assumes that the work for the first-degree examination can be carried on either at the school or at the university, and therefore that there is no difference in the methods of the two.

An increasing number of candidates actually present themselves from secondary schools for the external intermediate examination of the University of London; in 1904 there were about 150, in 1909 there were nearly 500, such candidates.

There will always be exceptional boys and girls who reach a university standard, both of attainments and of intelligence, long before they arrive at the ordinary school-leaving age. Let them either leave school and begin their university career early, or let them, if they remain at school, widen their knowledge by including subjects which are not supplied by the more rigid school curriculum designed for the average pupils; but let them not cease to be taught as school pupils. It is equally certain that there will also be boys and girls whose development is so slow that they barely reach the university standard when they leave school; yet some among them are the best possible material and achieve the greatest success in the end. For such persons an entrance examination will be required at the age of eighteen or nineteen; but I think it is unfortunate that this should be the same as that which quicker pupils can pass at the age of sixteen or seventeen, for an examination designed for the one age can scarcely be quite satisfactory for the other.

I confess that the whole matter is inextricably involved with the question of university entrance examinations. But to enter upon this here would carry us beyond the limits that I have laid down for myself, and it will be more profitable to decide what should be done at school and the university, respectively, before discussing how the examinations