But why, it may be asked, seek to test achieved results at all? Life will sufficiently prove and try them for us. Perhaps if we considered the case of individual students only, it might be possible to assent to this, though even then it would be fair to urge that the test of life comes too late to be of practical value. The superficial knowledge and real ignorance which a wellconsidered examination would have exposed at a period when they might yet have been remedied, find too terrible a Nemesis when left to be corrected by the course of life and the progress of events. It is hard to find oneself less accurate, less ready, less able than one took oneself to be. It is better to know this, to take the just measure of one's attainments, than to be surprised hereafter by a sudden perception of mortifying and irremediable incapacity. The keen sense of power which seems specially to belong to the period of the rapidly-developing faculties, needs to be thus chastened by the test of practical work within clearly defined limits. Untried and inexperienced, we feel capable of all things; failure teaches us modesty and charity. The advantages, however, of systematic and practical examination are by no means confined to those who are directly submitted to it. In the case of schools sending in candidates to the local examinations, the candidates, their fellow-pupils, and their teachers are all more or less benefited; and this would be still more largely the case if the examination, instead of being the conclusion of the school career, could be made an ordinary and regular incident during its continuance. This view is little likely to find favour with University men already over-weighted with examining work, but it can scarcely fail to commend itself to teachers. External examinations have been spoken of as designed to test achieved results; but these results are not supposed to be final. One grand advantage is the increased steadiness of schoolwork. Every teacher knows how difficult it is in the present confused state of the education of girls, to work out intelligently a comprehensive plan which shall combine breadth of general principle with thoroughness and accuracy of detail. Our material is imperfect, our machinery faulty, our motive power fitful and irregular. We have neither perfect pupils, perfect methods, nor, reluctant as we may be to confess it, perfect teachers. We are constantly liable to fail and falter through difficulties arising out of the foolishness of parents, the perversity of pupils, and our own ignorance and indolence. So long as this is the case, we may well be thankful to accept such support as any well-devised scheme of examination gives us. In the steady endeavour after a clearly-defined standard, we are more likely to attain the best educational results, than in working according to ever-varying standards, or according to no standard at all. And to say this is by no means to fall into the mistake of making examination regulations the measure, and literal conformity with them the end, of all our teaching. A right apprehension of the spirit does away with all bondage to the letter. Within the prescribed limits there is abundant room for the highest originality of method, and the utmost fertility of invention of any teacher; and if the limits be too narrow, by all means let them be extended-only let what is done be well done. This steadying influence is an advantage to pupils, no less than to teachers. Whilst the place in the class. list is of the least possible moment, the habit of accurate and thoughtful work, and the perception of the difference between knowing a thing and knowing about it, are of incalculable importance, and we are fully sustained by experience in our belief that great support and stimulus are afforded to the young student by the knowledge that her work will be submitted to an independent and impartial tribunal. This advantage is not confined to candidates actually sent in for examination, but is a gain more or less to the whole school. Those unwise teachers who prepare individual pupils for examination by that mysterious process called "cramming," forfeit, and deservedly so, this advantage. But it is surely unnecessary to do more by way of exposing this folly than to point out the hopeless confusion of such teachers as to what are the ends and what only the means of education. Cramming is, moreover, as absolutely unnecessary for the purposes of examination, as it is mischievous morally and intellectually. Many of the most successful candidates from girls' schools have, to our certain knowledge, gone in without one hour of special preparation from the ordinary work of their class. Where this is the case, the influence upon the school is likely to be the best and strongest. A generous emulation is awakened, which has its root in sympathy, not in envious rivalry; and the success of one issues in the increased energy and application of her companions; the defeat of another in their greater thoroughness and accuracy. The precision in working secured thus to the school is invaluable. It may be worth while here to remark that the predictions of those who expected that the opening of these examinations to girls would introduce jealousies, heart-burnings, and discussions unknown before, have so far been curiously falsified by the results. Whether we are to attribute it to the moral effects of the mental discipline involved in the attempt at real study, or to whatever other cause, the fact is certain, that the simplicity, sweetness, and good feeling of the girl candidates have hitherto been as remarkable as their orderliness and diligence. It has been pleasant to see the way in which they "fraternise" with each other, and how eager they are in all acts and offices of kindness. And here lies a great though altogether incidental advantage of such examinations. They tend to draw schools and teachers together, and to break down the painful isolation hitherto so characteristic of the profession of school mistresses. The internal economy, the organization of no school is interfered with, yet each begins to regard itself, and to be regarded, no longer as a solitary organizer, but as a member of the great community of schools: each teacher as a member of the community of teachers. Now this, in the present state of things, is clear gain; there is no need that we should become pedantic and professional. There is every need that we should exchange thought, experience, sympathy. Many of our greatest difficulties as teachers will be removed when once we have learnt to trust each other fully, and to work together heartily. Then indeed we may hope to secure that just economy of teaching power, that wise distribution of forces, without which it is vain to look forward to any great advance in the education of girls. It is quite possible that such a result might have been brought about in one or other of many different ways. In any case there would have been needed some such bond of unity amidst infinite diversity as is afforded by the very nature of this common test. The interest taken by parents in the examinations has also been so great as to encourage the hope that English fathers and mothers do not intend, when they delegate their functions as educators to the professional teacher, to dismiss all serious care for the education of their daughters. We need not merely a closer union amongst teachers, but a greater sympathy and a fuller co-operation between parents and teachers. But it will be said in all this, You have assumed the perfection of present schemes of examination, whereas we all know Yes, we all know the inherent and inevitable imperfection of all things human. No perfect scheme of examination has yet been devised, or being devised, could be carried into effect. A test which, being uniform for all, must press unequally upon individuals of diverse capacities and powers, which gauges only some of the intellectual results, and is incapable of direct application to the moral results of education, how incomplete and defective this must be! We can only say that, so far as it goes, it is of inestimable value, and that it is one of the most foolish of all foolish objections to a thing good in itself, that it does not do something which it was never intended to do. The ideally perfect examination has yet to be devised. Meanwhile, the University Local Examinations combine many of the most important requisites of such an examination. A standard of average attainments, pitched not at all too high for average ability and average industry; free play for special aptitudes and special attainments; methods devised to test, and on the whole pretty fairly, not only the memory, but the imagination and the judgment, absolute fairness and impartiality, these are secured to us by the very structure of the examinations. What of disadvantage attaches itself to them would seem to be chiefly the fault of teachers themselves. If these will confound means with ends, ignore the value of time in education, and try by cramming to crowd the work of years into months, stereotype their teaching to the dead level of a pass, or unduly press the eager and ambitious with a view to honours, on them be the shame, as theirs alone is the folly. To those who know how rightly to use them, such examinations are of the highest advantage only let it be borne in mind, that these are not to be suffered to become the one determining force in educationthat as the machinery becomes more highly wrought and finished, it will be ever more and more our duty to see that it is set in motion of the informing spirit. [The foregoing paper was read and discusssed at a meeting of the London Association of Schoolmistresses on March 24th, and the following conclusions were arrived at: All teachers who are worth anything practise examination. But teachers are not always competent to test their own work, as the same causes which led to mistakes prevent their being found out. It is better that the test should come early, while there is time to remedy faults, than to wait for the test of life. And this is a reason for using examinations during the school course, and not only at the end. No scheme of examination is perfect. Its value chiefly depends on the manner in which it is worked by teachers. The value of the Cambridge Local Examinations is greatly increased by their being alike in subjects and standard for both boys and girls. For these examinations cramming is totally unnecessary. Steadiness and precision in the work of the whole school are encouraged. Ill-natured rivalry is not encouraged. The girls enjoy the examinations, and the effect on health is good, when reasonable precautions are taken against overexcitement. The scheme has been found incidentally useful, as drawing teachers together, and as drawing parents and teachers together.] 102 A DISCOURSE ON MEDICAL EDUCATION. By DR. HEADLAND. I. THE CALLING. It may be said that to the members of the learned professions is delegated the duty of caring for their fellow-men; it is they, too, in conjunction with the literary men of the epoch, who make the mind of an age and mould the times. Leave it to statesmen to make treaties and alter laws; let the men of the press echo the feeling of the day; they do not come in contact with everyday men and women in their social relations; they stand afar off and do not mix with the throng. It is they-the men of that innumerable army of intelligent workers, who guide the aspirations and endeavour to restrain the thoughts, who adjust the differences and formulate the social position, who give advice in the daily necessities, succour in the wants and infirmities of the multitude around them; it is they who have the power to do good and to leave their impress upon the age-upon whom it depends whether this world of ours shall go on in its march of improvement, or slide back into mediæval darkness and the blackness of despair. This is the work of the members of the three professions, in defining whose several vocations it is apparent that their functions do so mingle and intertwine with one another, that I should say that the professor of one of them, if he would wish to attain any measure of perfection in his calling, must not only sympathize with, but understand to some extent the work of his brethren who belong to either of the others; that he is a better priest, a better lawyer, and a better physician, who is able on all occasions whatever to offer to his more ignorant brethren some advice worth having on matters which concern their welfare. Not that the provinces of each are not distinct enough, and that any uncalled-for intrusion of one into the domain of the other is not to be deprecated. It is for the priest to control, if he can, the thoughts, words, and deeds of men, to shape them to a moral standard by an appeal to motives which he can best enforce by a promise of rewards which he alone has authority to unveil from the world of the unseen. The lawyer takes cognizance of men as members of a community; meddling not with the conscience, he is content to regulate the actions, which he does by holding up the fear of punishment in this world for any injustice perpetrated by man to man. Without the lawyer there |
