A Gorgeous Farce,

Observer, Volume XIV, Issue 792, 3 March 1894, Page 2

A Gorgeous Farce,

One result of the Benge enquiry has been to force on the public mind the utter absurdity of the Bystem or rather the want of syßtem ruling the standard examinations at our public schools. These examinations are held, as most people are aware, once a year. But there is no uniformity about them whatever. The inspectors question the children at their own sweet will. The examinations are, in short, a sort of inspectorial go-as-you-please, and while Inspector A, who has possibly, breakfasted well and feels at peace with all men, saya ' bravo !' to the little boys and girls he has examined, and decides to ' pasß,' say 75 per cent., Inspector B, whose liver is in bad working order, and who is sour and glum and morose and dyspeptic, may decide on only ' passing ' 50 per cent, of the youthful scholars he examines, and yet those soholars may actually be more • forward ' than the small people who were put through their paces by genial Inspector A.

In short, the way in which the standard exams, are conducted is a gorgeous farce. Some Inspectors, it is well-known, are, in colonial parlance, ' terrors ' ; rigid and uncompromising persons who weigh their ' percentages ' as if they were precious stones before committing themselves, while other Inspectors of the free and easy and jovial sort are as las as they can be, and good-naturedly reluctant to send back a child for another whole year just because of a little bit of a slip or two. So wellknown is all this amongst teachers that the old hand 3 can tell almost to a certainty what the percentage of passes will be once they know the name of the Inspector who is going to conduct the examination.

Sorely in the interests of education and of the children there should be an end of this absurd state of things. We pride ourßelves on our educational system. We

enthuse over it in our newspapers, we introduce it into our speeches, we buttonhole the distinguished stranger within our gates to point out to him its advantages and get him to make special mention of it in the inevitable book we know without being told he is going to write. But can we, dare we, claim that the system which admits of the absurdities taacbed upon in this article is flawless? I rather think not.