the language of the science, nor yet have any ideas wherewith to connect and blend what they hear, so that it becomes knowledge and of a progressive character. And as regards those who, by one form of study or another, are laying the foundation of a science in their minds, popular science lectures, as a rule, will not afford the kind of instruction they require; for a student to be ever dwelling on the alphabet of a science, as on the alphabet of a language, is not wise; and the alphabet of the science a lecturer in popular scientific lectures must confine himself to, when the majority of his audience know nothing of science; for he naturally seeks to obtain a large audience, and therefore he must come down to their level; hence he will have to make his lecture more for seeing than for hearing. And the so-called science that is poured forth by the lecturer is not always of the soundest description; and the experiments shown are said to be sometimes deceptions; but I will let Mr. Todhunter tell the tale :-"So great is the difficulty in persuading experiments intended to be visible to a large company to conduct themselves properly that curious charges of unfairness are in circulation, which are more or less authenticated. Thus it is said one lecturer was accustomed to show by experiment that a body would fall down a tube in the shape of a cycloid faster than down a tube of another shape, corresponding to the

same vertical height; but in order to assist Nature he was wont to grease the ball surreptitiously which travelled on the cycloid. Again, another lecturer was accustomed to illustrate a mechanical principle known by the name of virtual velocity; a certain weight ought to remain immovable, though not absolutely fixed; in this case a nail applied to the weight, unknown to the spectators, prevented any casualty in the experiment."-The Conflict of Studies.

For many years the Government paid several eminent scientific men to give every year in Dublin short courses of lectures on the Sciences they professed; the Government also paid for lectures being delivered in different parts of Ireland; in each case the audiences were what are termed popular ones, for the lectures were free. When I came to work amongst evening students in Dublin, I could find no evidence that these lectures had been of any use in spreading true science amongst the people.

The Manchester people will no longer attend popular lectures, and I look upon it as a healthy sign; they refuse to make Science or any other branch of knowledge any longer a plaything; I hope now that they have put away the toys, they will say, as Professor Virchow says (see page 269). Now we must begin to learn, now we must study anew; now we must behave as those who are just entering on this science.

282

LECTURE VII.

Examiners and Examinations-Written Examinations not Suitable Tests for every Subject-Unsuitable Tests for the Inductive Sciences-Distinction between the Deductive and Inductive Sciences-Written Examinations in Chemistry frequently more Defective than they need to be-The Radical Difference between Scientific and Classical Culture— German Opinion on the Evil Effects produced in England by Competitive Examinations-The Evil Effects produced and illustrated when Teaching is rendered Subordinate to Examinations-The Examiner now controls the TeacherThe Great Educational Problem of our Time-The Qualifications an Examiner ought to Possess-The Answers to the Questions frequently require only the Exercise of the Portative Memory-The Preparing of Candidates-Efficient and Inefficient Tests-Cooking on Paper-Examinations in Chemistry applied to Agriculture.

IF examinations are employed as tests to ascertain the capabilities of the examinees for particular employments, it is obvious, and will be admitted by every one, that in order to ascertain whether the knowledge the examinees possess is available for the work they seek, the examination test should exactly resemble what they will have to do in the particular avocation they intend to follow. To test a man, whether he possesses the requisite education and capabilities for being a clerk, a paper (written) examination may be.

made the best and most suitable test, for writing will be the occupation in which he will be employed. But to examine a man, to see whether he was a good working mechanic by a written. examination would be unsuitable, it would be simply absurd; it might be desirable to know whether he could read or write, but the real test, the one that employers would value and accept, could only be applied in the workshop, for it could only there be ascertained whether he had the mental skill to plan and devise, and the manipulative skill to execute.

When examinations were first established at the Universities, a plan not dissimilar in principle was adopted, only such branches of study were examined upon, as the examinee could do or put in practice at the examination just as he would in any future employment of them in the actual business of life, mere information subjects, which do not, like the former, admit of direct measurement, were excluded, and it was long before they were admitted as examination subjects.*

* I have endeavoured to show the deteriorating effect which a violently competitive system exercises on the mode in which a great department of knowledge is both taught and studied under its influence. If the results are such as I have described them in the case of the particular instance selected, that of the exact sciences, there arises immediately a strong presumption that, in other branches which form the subjects of honours' examinations, the evil will be still more serious. Of all bodies of permanently acquired truth, the sciences of demonstration, by their very struc

Pen, ink, and paper are the instruments, in addition to books, which students of languages, and of the Deductive Sciences, require for the prosecution of their studies in these subjects; the student's power of doing or putting in practice that which his study intends he should be able to do, as working out problems, translating dead languages, for instance, can therefore be more practically and fairly tested in these subjects by written examinations than other subjects.

But written examinations are not suitable tests for the Inductive Sciences; as pen, ink, and paper, as well as books, are subsidiary instruments in their cultivation; to acquire a knowledge of them the student must not simply know what has been said and done by others in these subjects, but he must himself study the productions and operations of Nature, in the laboratory or in the field; and it is there only that he can be satisfactorily and efficiently examined as to whether his knowledge in these subjects is a knowledge of things and not the names of things.

When written examinations are employed as ture, afford the smallest field for the exercise of mere memory. Subjects like philology, history, moral philosophy, and natural science, on the contrary, when forming the matter of competitive examinations, almost inevitably play into the hands of the recollecting faculty, and are, therefore, likely to be more rapidly and deeply deteriorated under the stimulus of competition than are the exact sciences."-Mr. SEDLEY TAYLOR, M.A., On the Endowed Competitions at the Universities and their Results.