H. W. CHANDLER, Professor of Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy, Oxford Miss A. J. COOPER, Edgbaston High School for Girls, Member of Council of College of Preceptors, V.-P. of Birmingham Teachers' Association H. CROSSKEY, LL.D., 117 Gough Road, Birmingham, Chairman of School Management Committee of Birmingham School Board Rev. R. W. DALE, Birmingham J. DONALDSON, LL.D., Senior Principal of the University of St. Andrews H. S. FOXWELL, M.A., Lecturer in Moral Sciences, St. John's College, Cambridge SAMUEL R. GARDINER, late Professor of Modern History at King's College, London Rt. Hon. Sir WILLIAM GROVE, F.R.S., 115 Harley Street T. W. HADDON, B.A., Composition Master, City of London School Rev. H. HENSLEY HENSON, Fellow of All Souls, Oxford, and Head of Oxford House, Bethnal Green, E. T. HODGKIN, Hon. D.C.L. Oxford, Newcastle-on-Tyne JOSEPH KIDD, M.D., 15 George Street, Hanover Square, W. Lord MONTAGU, Palace House, Beaulieu, Southampton Rt. Hon. OSBORNE MORGAN, Q.C., M.P., 59 Green Street, W. Professor T. NICHOL, Balliol College, Oxford, Professor of English Language and Literature, University of Glasgow C. H. ROBARTS, M.A., Fellow of All Souls, Oxford Sir ARTHUR K. ROLLIT, M.P., M.A., D.C.L., Member of Council, Lord ARTHUR RUSSELL, 2 Audley Square, W. F. STORR, 40 Mecklenburgh Square, W.C. J. E. THORLEY, Warden of Wadham College, Oxford SIDNEY H. VINES, D.Sc., F.R.S., formerly Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, Sherardian Professor of Botany, Oxford FRANCIS WARNER, M.D., Lecturer, London Hospital JOSEPH WELLS, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Wadham College, Examiner in the Final and Classical Honour School, Oxford Bishop of WINCHESTER, Farnham Palace GEORGE WOOD, M.A., Fellow and Classical Lecturer of Pembroke College, Oxford Sir MONIER MONIER-WILLIAMS, M.A., Hon. D.C.L., Boden Professor of Sanskrit, Oxford Miss MARY A. Woods, Girls' High School, Clifton CALEB WRIGHT, M.P., Lower Oak, Tyldesley, Manchester The subjoined recommendations are made by the great majority of the foregoing signatories. 1. That a humble petition be presented to Her Majesty the Queen praying Her Majesty to appoint a Royal Commission to consider the whole subject of official appointments by examination, and to collect information bearing on the matter from other countries. 2. That the Governing Bodies of Oxford and Cambridge respectively be requested to appoint a committee to inquire into the modes in which the different kinds of examination, employed at or in connection with the Universities, re-act upon education; to make suggestions as to any modification, if required, of existing systems; and to collect and publish statements of opinion from those who have taken. part either in education or in examination. 3. That a similar request be addressed to other educational and examining bodies. 4. That a small committee be named, by those who have signed this Protest, to inquire into the methods of appointment by Corporations, Hospitals, other institutions, and large private firms engaged in trade; that it should collect opinions, make suggestions, and publish a report. 5. That the Head Master of each Public School, of each Endowed School, and the Head Masters of certain NonEndowed Schools, be requested to inquire into the various influences resulting from the different examinations to which boys are subjected, both at the commencement and the end of and during the school period; to make suggestions as to what substitutes, if any, should be employed for certain of these examinations; and, at their discretion, to embody in their report statements of opinion from different persons. II. CONSIDERING that nearly forty years ago I did my best to prove the necessity of examinations for admission to the Civil Service, it will be believed that I did not sign the foregoing protest with a light heart. Before the Indian Civil Service had been thrown open, and before Sir Charles Trevelyan had carried his reform of the Civil Service in England, I was allowed by the then editor of the Times to publish several letters signed La Carrière Ouverte, in which I said. all that could be said against appointments by patronage and in favour of examinations. Nor should I wish to withdraw now any of the arguments which I then advanced. I hold as strongly as ever that appointment by patronage is too much for human nature. But I believe the time has come to examine the examinations, to improve them, and to reduce, if possible, the evil which, in addition to much real good, they have produced. The present system of perpetual examination, in spite of all the good which it has done, stands self-condemned, so far as our public schools and universities are concerned, by two facts which cannot be contested; viz. (1) the number of men who, after having spent six years at a public school, fail to pass the matriculation examination in college, or the little-go examination in the university; (2) the number of men who, after having taken a degree at Oxford or Cambridge, cannot pass the Civil Service examinations without spending a year or two with a crammer. These facts speak for themselves. I wish, indeed, that I had time to go fully into the subject, but I have not at present, and I must be satisfied with giving my general impressions, and saying what is uppermost in my mind. From what I have seen at Oxford and elsewhere, all real joy in study seems to me to have been destroyed by the examinations as now conducted. Young men imagine that all their work has but one object to enable them to pass the examinations. Every book they have to read, even to the number of pages, is prescribed. No choice is allowed; no time is left to look either right or left. What is the result? The required number of pages is got up under compulsion, therefore grudgingly, and after the examination is over what has been got up is got rid of again like a heavy and useless burden. Nothing is converted in succum et sanguinem. The only thing that seems to remain is an intellectual nausea―a dislike of the food swallowed under compulsion. The mischief done is, I believe, most serious. It will poison the best blood of England, if it has not done so already. It is the best men who suffer most from the system of perpetual examination. The lazy majority has, I believe, been benefited by it, but the vigour of the really clever and ambitious boys has been systematically deadened. Formerly some of my clever young friends were what is called idle at Oxford, but during their hours of idleness, which mostly meant discursive reading and thinking, they grew into something, they became different from others. Now, my young friends seem all alike, all equally excellent, but so excellent that you can hardly tell one from the other. What is the result? We have excellent members of Parliament, excellent judges, excellent bishops, excellent generals: but if we want to know Who is Who! we must often consult a Red Book. England is losing its intellectual athletes who were a head and shoulders taller than the rest, and used to be looked up to as born leaders of men. And if history teaches anything, it teaches us that no country remains great without really great men, without a few men different from the rest. I am asked what remedy there is. In the university there is, I believe, a remedy. Let there be two sets of examinations, one for clever and studious men who promise to take high honours, another for the many. For the latter the examinations might remain what they are now. Only the degrees might be given, not in the name of the university, but in the name of the different colleges. For the former there should be a real matriculation examination held by the university, not, as now, by the colleges; and then, after three or four years, a final examination might follow for real academic honours, allowing great latitude in the subjects of examination. Much depends in all this on the examiners. In England most examiners are young men, in Germany they are invariably old. The professores ordinarii, who alone examine for academic degrees in German universities, try to find out what candidates have learnt and know; our young examiners seem chiefly bent on finding out what candidates do not know. Add to this that in some cases, though rarely, examiners are actually the same persons who have crammed their examinees, and it may be imagined how human nature is tried in that process, and what the result must be. With regard to the Civil Service, I know no substitute for competitive examinations. Competitive examinations, however, might be toned down to a minimum, and a year of probation might possibly be substituted for the final and decisive examination. I say possibly, for, as is well known, we have always to think of "Take care of Dowb.' |