FACING THE WOLF

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 29, 3 August 1923, Page 7

FACING THE WOLF

THE EXAMINATION SYSTEM CONDEMNED BY LORD BIRKENHEAD WHAT THE PRIMATE COULD NOT DO. (UNHID PRESS ASSOCIATION.—COPTRIGHT.) (AUSTRALIAN - NEW ZEALAND CABLE ASSOCIATION.) (Received 3rd August, 9 a.m.) LONDON, 2nd August. Lord Birkenhead, addressing a meeting of teachers in London, delivered a noteworthy criticism upon examinations. He said that personally- he had continued passing examinations until he was twenty-six; then, with the profoundest: relief, he had left Lincoln's Inn Hall, determined that never, in any conceivable circumstances, would he pass an--other. He had since set examination papers himself. He was convinced that 1 tile whole thing was unfair. The en- ■• counter resembled the meeting of Littlel Red Riding Hood and the wolf. The: examiner only asked questions out of that sparse fragment of the whole field' of knowledge which' he had explored, and the examinee's interests were not the same as those of the examiner. When he saw the difficulty and complexity of the ; questions set by some examiners, he was convinced that no one could pass them unless he had worked for two or three years in order to pass them. "It would be a staggering achievement for the Archbishop of Cantertairy to pass an examination in theology, and I am certain that no Lord Chancellor would claim that he could pass the final for the Bar if he had to sit to-morrow."