The Dominion WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1928. "BREAKING-UP” DAYS AND THOUGHTS

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 73, 19 December 1928, Page 10

The Dominion WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1928. "BREAKING-UP” DAYS AND THOUGHTS

Now is the time of the year for the annual school sports, annual school prize-givings and “breaking-ups,” speeches, cheers, and dispersals. It is an occasion when educationists and others may conveniently capture public attention while they talk of their aims and the problems of their work. Here and there a note worthy of special attention is struck. _ In his address at Wellesley College on Friday evening, His Excellency the Governor-General told the story of a certain occasion at Eton, when “three of the Empire’s most distinguished generals” confessed to having been put in the lowest form when they entered the school, and remained there until others came along and pushed them a little bit further up the school.

There are many well-authenticated examples of so-called school dullards becoming successful men in after life. For this apparent inconsistency there may be several reasons. While His Excellency at Wellesley College was citing the cases of the generals, the Rector of St. Patrick’s College, in another place, was throwing some light on the reasons. “It is unwise,” he said, “for parents to measure a boy’s success by an examination certificate, as not all boys develop precisely at the same time, nor at the time set down, by schedule according to age.”

“Maybe,” he continued, “examinations serve some useful purpose, though by no means the most important, and in passing, one may remark that educational practice is gradually coming to recognise that examinations are not the most important test of education, nor an indication of success in life. The most enlightened headmasters are decided on the relative unimportance of examinations as a test.”

There is an increasing tendency in the education world to challenge the traditional authority of the test by examination. This tendency ought to be noted and investigated. The examination may be a convenient and perfectly sound method of testing the progress of a pupil if conducted by the teacher for his own information and guidance. Frequent tests of this kind, coupled with the daily observation of the pupil at work should enable the teacher to form a sound judgment as to the measure of the pupil’s ability. But there is a growing conflict of opinion as to whether formal examinations should be used as tests for promotion or certificates. It may certainly be doubted whether the results of such tests would constituteas reliable an appraisement of the pupil’s qualifications as would’the considered opinion, honestly declared, of the teacher who had watched that pupil’s work throughout a whole year. This question touches the foundations of our educational system. In Germany the children pass through the equivalent of our primary and secondary school stages without a single examination of the kind to which we have been accustomed. Their first test comes when they desire to enter the university, at about eighteen years of age, and then it is an examination conducted by teachers who know them and their work.

The. point is this: Does the examination test condemned by the most enlightened educationist opinion discover real ability, or merely the capacity to reproduce information? The real problem ought to be to ascertain, not the amount of information a candidate can reproduce in the examination room in response to questions set for him. by individuals who have never seen him of his work, to whom he is only a number, but the capacity of the candidate to use what information he has received. If the latter proposition is accepted, then judgment of merit must be founded upon personal experience rather than upon examination tests. If agreement should ever be reached on this point, then a tremendous and important revolution in educational practice and reconstitution of standards will follow. The difficulty is that the products of the examination system have a vested interest in its perpetuation.