Page:1902 Encyclopædia Britannica - Volume 27 - CHI-ELD.pdf/727

EDUCATION 675 incompatible with intellectual success. Manliness, courtesy object to the setting up by any external body of an indepromptitude, flexibility of mind, a conscientious sense of pendent, standard of attainment; and the examinations of duty, and a respect for the feelings and the rights of others the Civil Service Commissioners were for nearly thirty are all valuable and indeed indispensable attributes for an years practically ignored by University authorities and efficient public officer either in the civil or the military service by the masters of the great public schools, notwithstandBut these are precisely the qualities which no conceivable ing the great variety of optional subjects offered to candisystem of examination can adequately test. We can examine dates. . Hence parents who desired to obtain commissions only what is examinable. The qualifications which can be or. public employment for their sons were fain to resort to tested by examination are accurate knowledge, general in- private tutors, who made it their business to understand telligence^ ability to think and to express the result of the conditions of success in examination, thinking in an orderly, coherent, and logical way. These thoroughly and who often achieved great success in passing their qualifications are not less valuable than the others, and are candidates. They were sometimes vaguely denounced at least as likely to coexist with them as to be possessed as crammers, and their methods as contrivances for independently. And on this point the judgment expressed enabling young learners to deceive the examiners by the by the. Civil Service Commissioners in their thirty-third appearance without the reality of knowledge, and by crude report is on the whole ratified by subsequent experience and hasty efforts of memory rather than by diligent and and by the general verdict of responsible statesmen and of solid study. There was no doubt some real danger in this the public. The Commissioners say :— direction, a danger from which the Universities themselves, “We think it sufficient to refer to the reports of the Royal Com- m preparing undergraduates for Honour examinations, are mission on Civil Establishments, the report of the Public Service not wholly free. But the best of the private tutors sought Commission (India), and the statements of the military authorities which show that the persons selected by means of our examinations to guard against possible evil of this kind, partly by are weH qualified for the public service. The Royal Commissioners declining to accept as pupils youths who, owing to deficient on Civil Establishments, in their second report, paragraph 32 say pre iminary training or to any other cause, had no reasonot the lower division clerks : ‘ As stated in our former report paragraph 109, we are of opinion that the young men of this made able prospect of success, and partly by insisting on diligent who have entered the service since the Order in Council of 1876 are attention to a serious course of study and discipline, such of excellent quality and capacity.’ This statement is further con- as would enable candidates to systematize and arrange their 0U a ^ of 3241 men clerks appointed between knowledge and express it in the best form. Nevertheless it has been more and more strongly felt that the break in p • only 23 have beenopinion rejectedisonalso probation on theofscore of methciency. A favourable expressed the the continuity of a youth’s studies caused by his premature officers of the higher division in paragraph 109 of the first report, the Public Service Commission (India) reports that ‘ on more than removal from a public school or a University to a private one occasion inquiries have been made by Government into the teacher, had often an unfavourable effect both on his moral . working of the competitive system, with the result that it has been and his intellectual discipline. Hence it has become generally acknowledged to have procured for the ranks of the Indian Civil Service officers who, as a body, are eminently quali- evident that the standard of qualification required for entrance into , the public service ought to be as nearly as fied lor the performance of the duties which devolve upon them and many of whom have earned a reputation for administrative possible assimilated to the standard which is attained in a capacity ol a high order.’ They believe themselves to be justified in the conclusion that, ‘apart from questions of detail as to the am good school. To a large extent this object has been ot candidates, and the subjects, standards, and conditions of ex- achieved.. On the one hand, all the recent policy of the aruination, the general results of competition, as applied to the Commissioners has been in favour of taking the course India Civd Service, have been satisfactory, and that the system prescribed in the Universities and public schools, from which accordingly be maintained.’ We have reason to believe the candidates are recruited, as the best practical measure that the military authorities are equally satisfied with the officers of the. qualifications which ought to be required at the who have entered the army by means of our examinations.” competitive examination. And on the other hand, the The medical officer who in 1900 examined the selected public schools and. University authorities have co-operated candidates for the Civil Service of India reported most with, the Commissioners by widening their curriculum, and favourably of their physique. He said: “They pre- helping to render the services of special tutors outside the sented no indication of physical depreciation or damage to schools to a large extent unnecessary, except in the case of be attributed to the influences of study. For the most special technical departments. On this point the testimony part they presented the evidence of vigorous health, and of Dr Magrath, the Provost of Queen’s College, and lately bore the stamp of the University and the public school.” the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, is sigThe Civil Service Commissioners provide for several nificant and valuable. He says :— grades, of examination, which may roughly be described “I strongly feel that, as at present conducted, the higher of ns falling under one of these five heads :— (1) University type: Indian Civil Service and Class I. these examinations directly and efficiently contribute to the maintenance of a considerable element of general culture in the of the Home Civil Service. studies of those schools in England which keep their pupils to (2) First Grade or Public. School type : Army and Havy seventeen or beyond. The excessive and unreasonable desire for the introduction of what are called useful, i.e., professional, subExaminations, e.g., Sandhurst and Woolwich. jects into al forms of education, from the highest to the lowest, (3) Second Grade School type: Second division clerks. would, I believe, have, much more extensively affected the cur(4) Elementary School type : Boy copyists and minor ricu a o these schools if the Civil Service Commissioners had not offices. tramed their examinations with a view to securing for the higher (5) Technical and Professional groups : Various special C aSS ^ P0S^S those example who haveofreceived the parabest general education..theIt service is a curious the funny examinations. doxical way in which we blunder eventually into the best course, The subjects and the scope of these several examinations Was n professional evenhave members of about what 11 ?^our are in all cases determined by the Commissioners, after full might be called educationaleducators, hierarchy,orwho brought is result, but persons appointed to secure fair play among those communication with the heads of the various departments who aimed at administrative posts thrown open on the abolition concerned and with the Treasury. patronage and favouritism. It is the fact that these posts have It is important to consider the influence exerted by the ol been secured to a, large extent by lower middle class men who competitive system, on the aims and work of the places of have had the ability and the good fortune to be able to continue education from which the ranks of public servants are from their general studies for a longer period than usual, which has set time to time recruited. At first there was on the part of before the parents of such boys an object of ambition on the boys behalf, which has stimulated these parents to make often teachers and professors a disposition, easily explicable, to very considerable efforts to secure for their sons such educational