two or three of them only, as Tutors who are to receive pupils. The restriction at present habitually prevailing, of the Public Tutors in each College to two or three, is a modification of the original scheme which is clearly within its limits. This modification has never, in practice, been treated as unchangeable. It is upheld on the ground of its advantages, which in the present state of the University of Cambridge at least, are very manifest. For each of these Public Tutors joins with him one, two, or three of the younger Fellows, as Assistant Tutors; and these his assistants give lectures to his pupils, each on that branch of Classics or Mathematics to which he has especially attended. These Lecturers, each employing himself habitually on some special department of learning or science, may be considered as being, in that respect, analogous to Professors in other Universities: and the pupil receives the benefit of their lectures, as a part of the instruction which his Tutor has to provide for him. By the practice of having in each College two or three Public Tutors only, the pupils enjoy this advantage at a very moderate expense (ten pounds a year in all): while the office of Tutor, at the same time, is made lucrative enough to retain in College men of high talent and reputation. If Fellows of Colleges had only three or four pupils each, either all men of great ability and acquirement would quit the employment, and seek success in professions better rewarded, or else the payments of the pupils must be made much greater than they now are.

145 It may be said that the lectures of the Public Tutors are not, at present, the most prominent part of the instructions which the pupils receive. Mr Lyell states, (that of which we have frequent complaints among ourselves also,) that Private Tuition has in a great measure superseded this Public Tuition ;-that besides the public Lectures of Tutors and Assistant

Tutors, and often to the neglect of them, pupils have recourse to Private Tutors, to prepare them for the University Examinations; and that thus, the expenses of a University Education are much increased; (the payment to a Private Tutor being £40 or £50 a year) the studies of the pupils made more narrow and conventional; and the most laborious of the University teachers kept back in their intellectual progress.

146 I have no wish to deny either the existence, or the importance of this evil. One of the objects of the present volume is, to suggest measures which may have a remedial tendency in this respect. But I see no reason whatever to believe that Mr Lyell's remedies would avail us. I return therefore to the discussions in which I was engaged when I was compelled to enter into the digression which this section contains. Among the processes which have been proposed and employed as remedies for some of the evils which have been noticed, are Examinations; and of these I now proceed to speak.

SECT. 3. Of Examinations.

147 Examinations, no less than Lectures, are to be considered as means of Education. Since the proximate aim of Lecturers often is to prepare students for undergoing an examination, it is sometimes imagined that Lectures are means to Examinations as ends. But, in fact, Lectures and Examinations are alike means to a common end. The knowledge which, in such examinations as we have to speak of, the student brings out of his acquisitions, he is required to produce, in order that he may be induced to acquire it. Whatever honour or profit may be the prize of examinations, in a course of Education, the honour and the profit are not the ultimate objects of the system. They are instruments which have it for their purpose to make men give their attentions to those studies of

which the educational course consists. In the student's individual purposes, it may be the object of study to obtain prizes; but in the purpose of the educational legislator, it is the object of prizes to promote study; and the prizes which he proposes, and the conditions to which he subjects them, are regulated by his views as to what the best course of study is.

148 Examinations, in teaching bodies in general, and in the English Universities especially, are not adopted with a view to supersede, but to aid the influence of Lectures. They are instituted commonly, as I have already said (136), in order to guard against the possibility of students not profiting by the instructions given in the system, or to distinguish and reward a proficiency in the studies which the system includes. But we may conceive an Educational System consisting of Examinations alone; requiring students to pass Examinations, or tempting them to do so by honours and rewards, but not requiring attendance at courses of Lectures, either College or Professorial. This practice has been adopted, in some measure at least, in the administration of the University of Dublin; but it has never been at all admitted into the English Universities. In those, attendance upon College Lectures has always been a part of the system; and a residence of a certain period, under the restrictions of College life, has always been required as a condition, no less essential than the passing of Examinations, to the acquisition of the Degrees which mark the completion of the student's educational course in the University. If we were to make the Examinations alone the essential part of the system in the English Universities, we should no longer have any reason for requiring a certain amount of residence in College, from the student who applies for a Degree. In that case, the University would merely have to ascertain whether the candidate could pass the appointed Ex

amination; and would have no occasion to inquire whether he had acquired his knowledge in the College Lecture-room, or in his own study, or under the

eye

of

a Private Tutor within the University, or in the house of a Private Tutor in some remote part of the kingdom. In this case, the University might consist of non-resident students, except at the time when the Examinations summoned them into attendance: and the Lectures, both of College Tutors and of University Professors, would be mere opportunities, which students might avail themselves of, or not, at their pleasure.

149 That this would be a very bad method of education I shall not stay to prove. Knowledge acquired merely with a view to Examinations is generally very shallow and imperfect, and soon passes out of the mind, when the occasion which prompted the effort is past. Knowledge thus acquired for a special occasion, does not take possession of the mind as that knowledge does which is imparted in a gradual manner by a continued series or course of studies, each step being viewed with reference to its difficulties and applications, and secured before a progress is made to the next; as will be the case in a well-ordered course of College instruction. Besides this, the advantages are lost which we have described as properly belonging to College Lectures;-the general operation of social study, and of the mutual influence and common sympathy of a considerable body of students. Even in cases in which the Examinations for University Degrees have had the greatest importance given them, in France, for example, it has still been found necessary to require a previous residence of two years in an authorized College, as a condition which the candidates must fulfil*. To make Examinations alone the essential

* Rapport de M. Thiers sur la Loi d'Instruction Secondaire, 1844, p. 66.

parts of the system, in the English Universities, would be to render the Colleges incongruous and superfluous part of those bodies.

150 But it is not enough that we require the students both to pass the University Examinations, and to reside for a certain time in the Colleges in which their studies are to be prosecuted, except we also secure a correspondence between the Questions proposed in the Examinations, and the instruction given in the public course of the Colleges. If this correspondence do not exist, the University Examinations will still be effectively the only essential mode of the University's teaching, and there will be a tendency to neglect and evade the teaching of the Colleges. This correspondence is more especially important in the Permanent Studies of our Educational System; for these especially require to be mastered in the complete and gradual manner which I have described; both on account of their own importance, and on account of their being the necessary basis of all higher and wider acquirements. If the University Examinations allow candidates to receive degrees and honours without a thorough possession of this elementary knowledge, and do not ensure its acquisition in the Colleges, the education must be very defective, however imposing an array of difficult and extensive Questions the Examinations may exhibit. And, in the Progressive Subjects of study also, however profound and comprehensive may be the points brought into view in the examinations, it is desirable that there should be correspondence between the views of the examiners and the instructions given to the students, either in their Colleges, or by the University Professors: for, otherwise, the Examinations alone will be looked to for guidance by the students, and this is a guidance which will lead, both to the evils of which we have spoken, and to others of which I shall shortly have to speak.