looking at the practice according to the view entertained at our public schools, we may see that it is capable of being a manifestation of profound knowledge and refined taste. We may perceive this in Dr Arnold's account of his view, as to what this exercise ought to be*. He distinguishes construing, in which the Latin or Greek is rendered word by word into English, from translating, in which whole sentences are read into English. And recommending this latter course, as alone fit for the more advanced scholars, he requires the translation to be subjected to conditions which make it, as he says, "an exercise in extemporaneous English composition." He requires, for instance, that where the order of the words in the original is emphatic, it shall be preserved as nearly as possible in the translation; and that this be done without violating the idiom of our own language. Further, he recommends that in the choice of his words, and in the style of his sentences, the scholar should follow the age and character of the writer whom he is translating. Thus he would have Homer translated by words mainly of Saxon origin, the sentences being a series of simple propositions. In translating the tragedians he would have such a mixture of Saxon and French derivations as we have in Shakespeare; and the like in other cases. It is evident that to translate thus, and at the same time, to supply, when demanded, the knowledge of grammar, history, antiquities, &c., which are requisite for the explanation of the translated passages, is a performance which may bring into play the highest scholarship, knowledge, and talent. There must be a great defect in a system of classical instruction and examination when it does not include in it oral translation, directed by these views, or at least directed by a con * Journal of Education, 1834, reprinted in his Miscellaneous Works, p. 353. viction that it is a very important exercise, capable of great excellence. The opinion that such translation is a convenient cover for inaccurate scholarship, can only be true, Dr Arnold very justly says, through the incompetency or carelessness of the teacher. If the force of every part of the sentence be not fully given in an examination, the examiner judges accordingly; but if the examinee employs English, however idiomatic or elegant, which does not express the original, his translation is set down as bad by the judicious examiner, however much it may be admired by the ignorant bystander. He is not necessarily set right, because the Examination is not a lecture; but he is judged to be wrong; and in most cases this judgment will be sufficiently well known to produce its effect. 168 With regard to Mathematics, as I have already said, Geometry and Mechanics are well suited to be the subjects of oral examinations. This is rendered more easy, if the Diagrams which occur in those subjects, and the letters which mark their parts, are assumed as fixed and known; and such examinations may be extended to Newton's Principia, in which the Diagrams are thus fixed and known. A set of Diagrams for the Elements of Mechanics, generally recognized like those of Simson's Euclid or of Newton, would enable us to examine orally in that subject much more readily and quickly than we can do without such help. The main parts of such examinations as we now speak of should be the proofs of the standard propositions of the subjects, and such subsidiary questions as serve to ascertain that the examinee understands the proof, and can apply the same principles in cognate cases. 169 There prevailed till lately in the University of Cambridge, a vivá voce exercise, principally in Mathematics, which may here be noticed. I speak of the Disputations in the Schools, which were formerly re quired of all Candidates for Degrees, but which are now discontinued. Each of these Disputations turned on three Theses or Questions, of which, latterly at least, two were of a mathematical and the third of a moral nature. The Opponents adduced arguments in a logical form, and in Latin, against the Theses of the Respondent, which were generally taken from wellknown works, as those of Newton, or Cotes, or Wood; and these arguments the Respondent had to refute, or to take off, as it was called. This exercise was much facilitated by the general familiarity with the diagrams of Newton, Cotes and Wood, which then prevailed. It was eminently fitted, in my opinion, both to produce and to test a thorough acquaintance with the subjects thus disputed on; for the arguments were often very perplexing; and yet it was certain that, inasmuch as they seemed to contradict demonstrated truths, there must be some fallacy in them. To be able always to detect the fallacy at the moment, required both a very firm hold of the subject, and great clearness and quickness of mind. If I may be allowed to speak of my own tastes in reference to this matter, I must say that, both as Disputant and as Moderator, I always took a most lively interest in these exercises; and was never satisfied, after an argument had been brought, till I saw the fallacy. But these exercises gradually lost their interest for the students, because they were superseded, in their bearing upon University distinction, by the subsequent examinations of the same Students in the Senate-House. The Questionists' performances in the Schools produced no direct definite effect, and finally produced no effect at all, upon their places in the Tripos Paper. When matters came to this point, the Questionists went through the Disputations as a form, taking no thought about the meaning of the arguments which they read. The last time that I was Moderator, I tried in vain to lead, either the Respondent or the Opponents, to understand the arguments, or to look for the fallacies of them. 170 Yet I am fully persuaded, as I have said, that to discover the solutions of such difficulties is an excellent mathematical discipline. It would, I think, be difficult to restore the Disputations in their ancient form, and even in any modified form. Men are now so unfamiliar with Latin, and Latin is so ill suited to express our modern mathematics, that the employment of that language for such a purpose is not to be thought of. Yet such Disputations could not be carried on with any degree of precision or coherency, without some technical forms of expression; and all the existing technical forms being Latin, it would not be easy to supersede them by English technicalities. We have seen that on this ground one of our classical scholars has been compelled to retain the Latin for his critical notes, whilst employing English for his notes of explanation*. Again: the technical forms employed in such Disputations must be logical forms; for the technicalities of Disputation are one of the main subjects of logic; but we are here very little acquainted with logic; nor would it, I think, be easy to revive the study of it to such an extent as a correct conduct of Disputations would require. I think, therefore, that any attempt at reviving the Mathematical Disputations of our Schools must be looked upon as chimerical. 171 But I think the same beneficial effect which these Disputations were fitted to produce upon the Questionists, along with the beneficial effects of oral examinations, of which I have before spoken, might be produced by another mode of proceeding. I have already intimated that the Moderator, in such disputations, may take the arguments out of the hands of the Opponent, and may himself put them to the Re * Mr Shilleto's Demosthenes De falsa Legatione, spondent, and require them to be answered. And the Examiner may, without the form of a Disputation, do the same thing. We may propound difficulties against the received doctrines of the subject which the examinee professes to have studied, and may require him to solve them. This indeed is a mode of oral examination which differs from common interrogations respecting received proofs, only in making the difficulties which are propounded to the examinee a little more elaborate than the obvious obscurities of a demonstration. By means of difficulties thus proposed to the examinee, both his possession of the subject in question, and his power of mathematical reasoning, may be very thoroughly tested. Such an examination may very well be made an important element in assigning to a student his place in the classes of mathematical honours. And such exercises being held in public, and attended by those who are afterwards to become candidates, may produce, in the mathematical portion of our System of Education, the benefits of an oral examination which we have spoken of as so desirable. We may afterwards speak more in detail of the mode in which this suggestion may be carried into effect. 172 With regard to the remaining objection, of those above mentioned, to a system of oral examination; that such Examinations cannot be extended to the profounder parts of knowledge, and especially of mathematical knowledge;-undoubtedly the weight of the objection must be acknowledged; and from the undeniable force of this consideration, we are led to conclude that our system of examination ought not to be entirely oral; a conclusion to which we are led by several other considerations. We have already stated that an examination of any serious extent, if entirely oral, will require too great an expenditure of time to allow it to be applied to a great number of candidates: add to which, it is desirable, not only in analytical |