Had this not been self-evident, many If the writer on Competitive Exami- "Natural Science, according to the A statement so inaccurate and mis- which at the time was known only to a very few. But he is guilty of telling a tale in the year 1874, the virtue of which has long since exploded. Briefly, this is what occurred. In the year 1868 the maximum number of marks allotted to Natural Science was 500. This, in the opinion of certain scientific gentlemen, was a very low figure to assign to a branch of knowledge which at our universities, and at some few of our public schools, was claiming particular attention. Accordingly the authorities consented to place Natural Science on a better footing by increasing the maximum of marks to 1,000. The consequence was precisely what every sane man would have expected. The bait was tempting, the idea was novel and liberal, the subject was interesting, and thus the bids for marks in Science were plentiful. University men, schoolboys, and the candidates reading with private tutors, all had a bite at the cherry; indeed, the entries for Science in 1869 nearly doubled those for the previous year, and what with the then benevolent spirit of examiners, and the want of a fixed standard of qualification, a great number of competitors had a short and by no means unsuccessful mark hunt. Of course the critics may assume, if they choose, that the same sort of thing is going on now, and they may tell the public so, and the public will probably believe it; but this is no guarantee that the information is correct. It is much to be regretted that a literary essay of so much theoretical merit, and to which, in consequence, such prominent attention has been called, should have abandoned some of its chiefest points of attack to this sort of counter evidence. The public have been pestered for years with 66 competitive" theories: they now want facts, and nothing but scrupulously accurate facts; and they ought to be disabused of the notions they have formed respecting what is vulgarly called cram." It may be remarked that all work that is done away from school, or from one of the universities, whether it be of the highest or the lowest order, 66 66 is nowadays supposed to be indigestible, and is called "cram." The forced imparting of ill-digested matter may reasonably be called "cram;" but the careful conveyance of well-digested matter is not cram." By what authority, then, are these scathing tirades against private tuition uttered and written? Why is every man, who does not happen to be a lecturer in an endowed educational institution, to be styled a 'crammer? " A pertinent refutation of this popular fallacy was conveyed in the following remark made a short time ago by a gentleman eminent in the scientific world:-"I assisted in the lecture work at the University of Cambridge for twelve successive years; I bring my university lectures, together with increased experience, to bear on my pupils in London, and I am dubbed a 'crammer.'" The British public seriously believe that competition wallahs are undergrown, brainspent creatures, who have been subjected to a "nefarious system " of education, and have been allowed to suffer premature growth in an exotic nursery; and that their tutors, the socalled crammers, are little better than burglars, who possess a Mephistophelian aptitude for rendering pupils impervious to assaults by the Civil Service Commissioners. The truth is, that the candidates for these higher examinations are notoriously the most exacting and the most hypercritical of students. They know perfectly well what scholarship and high class tuition. mean; and if they leave school for a course of special reading, it is not because the school instruction is not of the highest order, but because their prospects of securing the prize of a grand start in life are enhanced by a continuous and uninterrupted course of study, and by having a definite object constantly in view. What the most earnest of these candidates also desire is to be placed, for the nonce, at a safe distance from the temptations and daily interruptions of the cricket field, the boating and foot-ball clubs, and other school sports. And will anybody assert that this is not the very moment of their lives when a little self-denial should be cheerfully exercised? The purport of this paper is not to champion private champion private teaching, nor to assume that it is necessary for a candidate to read with this or that tutor if he would be successful. It is sufficient to say that the best teachers have no special art, except the power of teaching; and that really good and sound work will always hold its own by whatever name it may be called. I am, however, most anxious to put on record a few details bearing on the defective principles of action now in vogue; for nine-tenths of the strictures contained in the above quoted article, and, indeed, in nearly all that has been written on this subject of late, are really referable to other causes than the evils of private tuition. So very little is known about the process and the practical results of this examination, that the critics, anxious to explain the reason of its comparative failure, have selected the private tutors for their scapegoats. So numerous are the instances of premiums being paid for paltry knowledge in some subjects, that it is fast becoming a moot point whether the candidate who aims at a high standard and the tutor who helps him are not over-exerting themselves. It may be that some tutors who prepare men for the higher as well as lower examinations have found this out long ago, and have saved themselves and their pupils the labour of serious reading. Hence, the ugly sobriquet of "crammer" has been transmitted through them to the more painstaking but less wary members of the profession. One case in point is worth quoting. A candidate after 4 years study, in view of the Indian Civil Service, has just succeeded in gaining a low place on the selected list. Very few, if any, more honestly read men in English and Science have presented themselves for examination during the past ten years. Last year the highest mark awarded. for English Literature, and a very high mark for History, fell to him. The year before he also distinguished himself in the same subjects. Among the historical works to which he had access, and which he had carefully read, and continued to read to the last, were:-Freeman's "Norman Conquest" and "Growth of the English Constitution ;" Kemble's "Saxons in England;" Stubbs's "Select Charters;" Pearson's "History of the Middle Ages ;" "The Paston Letters;" Hallam's stitutional History;" Erskine May's "Constitutional History;" besides parts of Palgrave's "Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth," miscellaneous biographies, and historical tracts. "Con But the verdict passed in 1874 on his knowledge of history was identical, as expressed in a small number of marks, with that passed on a comrade of his who knew comparatively nothing whatever of the subject. In fact, the cursory perusal of a school text-book for six months would have served this candidate's purpose equally well; and young men are apt to notice these things. One may fairly conjecture he was vigorous enough for this year's struggle, as he was the only man of 207 competitors who appears to have really pleased Mr. Matthew Arnold in English essay writing. The lesson to be derived from this serio-comic circumstance is, that high class reading may suffer equally with pure cram in the process of examination; and that they who condescend to take their stand on the low level of 66 mere smattering" have been, so to speak, warned off the higher ground by "caution" signals of this authoritative character. In the teaching communities, there may be persons with such queer notions of what is legitimate and high-minded that the profession of private "coaching" (outside the walls of universities) is liable to lose in dignity what it may gain in a certain vulgar notoriety. It is not that special preparation for the multiform ordeals regulated by the Civil Service Commissioners is a dangerous expedient in itself if properly carried out, since in most large schools there appear to be distinct arrangements to meet this par ticular end; but that recent legislation, by abolishing patronage, and by opening the door to every adult in Great Britain and Ireland within a particular limit of age, has tended to multiply twentyfold the number of competitors, and has consequently created a market, now quite flooded, for the employment of private tutors and lecturers. It was obvious that in the excitement of such vast changes the theory that "all is fair in war" would freely obtain with some men more selfish and less scrupulous than they ought to be; and judging from the tempest of denunciation. which has lately spent itself in the public press, it is to be inferred that there are delinquents in the land. And just as hundreds of innocent persons were arrested under the "general warrants," issued to trap offenders of the John Wilkes stamp, so the despotic and potent arm of anonymous criticism has fallen heavily on all to make sure of reaching the few who have abused their opportunities. The foregoing statistics represent a mere fraction of the evidence which can be brought forward to support the charge of inconsistency in the present scheme of marking. It must, however, be admitted that four branches have been marked throughout with fair consistency-Classics, Italian, Sanskrit and Arabic. The value of proficiency in the other branches seems to be about as unfixed as the weather during these Eastertide competitions. And it is quite intolerable to hear the ever-recurring question put by anxious aspirants, "Do you think such and such a subject will pay this year?" A new rule has recently been introduced which imposes on each candidate a fine of 51. for the privilege of being examined. The sum collected annually in aid of the expenses of this competition amounts to over 1,000l. If the whole or the greater part of this sum were expended on a Court of Examiners, whose duty it would be to suggest questions, to fix the character of the examination, and to see that the marks were distributed in accordance with a prescribed plan, there would be an end to the exercise of those erratic and arbitrary assessments of merit which are the occasion of so much positive injustice. The practice of compelling each candidate to undergo a viva voce examination in all his subjects would, if carried beyond its present narrow limit, answer two purposes. It would entirely obviate the necessity of deducting marks for socalled superficial knowledge; and it would give the more able men a chance of being subjected to a really crucial test. But where is the opportunity in a ten or twelve minutes' conversation of discovering the merit that is exceptionally high? One hears far too many instances of candidates of second-rate merit being asked questions in history or literature that "suited" them, and of well-read men meeting with "dreadful luck;" and it is notorious that in the process of comparing notes after these brief interviews, A finds he could have answered the questions which B missed, and vice versa. This species of lottery, if amusing to some, is demoralizing to others. It is suggested that a searching test in this direction would prove to be the backbone of this examination. Many a man of ready and fluent expression will make mere text-book reading do him extravagant service, and if this happens to be supported by certain suitable questions in a brief viva voce test, he will do far more than hold his own against a less lucky but infinitely superior competitor. If we may assume that it is feasible to fix a definite standard of merit, and to have this standard kept under supervision and control, it would not be necessary to make any change in the regulations presently in force touching Latin, Greek, Mathematics, Chemistry, and Oriental languages. But the time. allowed to each competitor for a viva voce examination in modern languages ought to be extended to half an hour, except in cases of unmistakable breakdown. And the examinees in Moral Philosophy, English History, English Literature, and in the four remaining branches of Natural Science, should be tested by two sets of examiners in the respective subjects. The The time now allowed for Practical Chemistry is ample; but the Zoologists, for instance, have no sufficient opportunity of recording a sound practical acquaintance with this special branch of science. At the recent competition a few unusually advanced students of Zoology presented themselves-men who had worked diligently on the subject for three years, and who had supplemented private study by over a hundred lectures, delivered during the final year alone. Of what substantial avail to them was a somewhat hurried talk with an examiner who had only a couple of bones on a table? very test which on the previous occasions was pronounced all-important, and indeed imperative as evidence of merit, viz., Comparative Anatomy, was not even introduced by the new examiner. Not a single subject was offered for dissection. It was pleasantly hinted that the examiner might possibly have been contaminated by the startling revelations in the Edinburgh Review, and had taken for granted that "naturals " are invariably "got up in a hurry." It is humbly submitted that if anything is done "in a hurry," the candidates themselves are rarely responsible for it; and in justification of the proposal made on this head, the following remark once made by a Civil Service examiner will not be out of place:-" How can I get at the bottom of a man's knowledge in so wide a subject as Mental and Moral Philosophy in a quarter of an hour?" 2. Final selection after probation. After what has been remarked respecting the state of public feeling in regard to the general character of Civil Service Examinations, it is easy to understand how the impression has gone abroad that our prestige in India is declining. The Anglo-Indian is wont to regard each new arrival with a cautious and supercilious eye; he has made up his mind that the men who have |