EXAMINATIONS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7022, 10 January 1910, Page 3

EXAMINATIONS

"I don't hold for a moment that you can test anybody's capabilities l>y examination. "The whole thing is a'humbug."—Prof. Hunter, limes, C/l/10. (To tba Editor ''N.Z. Times.")

alx>ve utterance, coming firom one who is in a position to give light and leading to the educationists of the- colony, seems to me to need decided qualifications. , „,, \ quotation from 11. G. W r ellss Mankind in the Making" may be regarded as the pitting of authority against authority :

"A really well contrived leaving school examination, and it must be remembered that the theory and scienco of examinations scarcely, exists as yet . . . could effect this first classification."

These words, "tho theory and science of examinations scarcely exists as yet," ai-e most significant. If, as I myself believe, they Uro very true, it behoves those in the throes of what may be called examophobia to be moro tentative. The educational reformer has unfortunately been always a little too wholehearted'. Unhesitating certainty has been his bane—a bane particularly to be avaded when, as Professor Hunter 6 hotter chosen remarks indicate, wo are just beginning to fumble our way towards the thin beginnings of an educational science. Oracles this science needs, but oracles convincing, not merely oracles convinced. We are at a juncture where an ounce of proof, even theoretical proof, is worth a pound of assertion. To scrutinise more closely the professor's particular remark, one can without hesitation admit that it is not entirely without justification, but there is equal justification for calling politics, religion, and university lectures huni-bu-s The fact remains that by politics the country's business is somehow done; by religion a certain amount of behaviour and ideals is instilled; by lectures a certain proportion of students receive a certain proportion of instruction. The reform in all four cases must come not by annihilation and substitution, but by judicious eliminations and insertions. Then examinations will well perform an indispensable function—that of standardising and auditing in the public's behoof the work of its educational institutions. What, as .nearly as it can be cqnfined to a short sentence, is the function of examination? It is to ascertain what knowledge or what aptitude for a certain arena of activity the student possesses—the said arena being one approved by those specially qualified persons o.ppointed by the community to condition it. ■ . . , How, alone, can these two things be ascertained of the student? By getting him to express what is in him. _ If he has studied painting it is surely fair to set him at a canvas. If he has been through the woodwork course, what injustice to require him to make a specified bookshelf? If he has studied mathematics, why should he not be tested by a paper? If English has taken up his time, why should he not be required to exhibit his knowledge of it—his facility in the use of it? Nearly always, I think, it will bo found that in addition to any either test a paper asking a' student to set forth in his mother tongue the best Useertained data of his subject will be a valuable and a reasonable requirement.

That after examinations made the most of, no further inquiries as to the student's capabilities need be made, would bo an assertion as sweeping as Professor Hunter's. The moral factor of his personality would still (remain largely undermined. Scores of minor features would, too, be passed by unnoticed. The important fact would, however, remain that by examination a substantial insight would have been gained intothe student's abilities. This is not a recondite statement. Its empirical justification will be realised by anyone who cares to read through a composition on the cow by a primary school class of forty. One alternative to examination papers perhaps present in the professor's mind when ho made his remark, suggests itself, "the teacher should decide the status of the scholar." As the one who ought to know the scholar best, the teacher should undoubtedly be competent to do this. As the one most interested, however, the teacher is only too strongly tempted on viewing his own handiwork to pronounce it very good. As warrantably dispense with your clerk of th© works on a .£SOOO job as rely wholly on your teacher in the case of a .£1.000,000 one. The foregoing is written by one who has listened with'pleasure to one* of Professor Hunter's stimulating and outspoken addresses—one who recognises that he takes a vital, as contradistinguished from pedantic, view of education, but by one, also, whose decided opinion it is that the iconoclast is only leas to be dreaded than the idolater I am, etc., A BEGINNER. Mauriceville West, January 6th.