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98 BfETHODS OF SOCIAL REFORM.
of a junior cbse usually consists of intellects EO blunt or BO
inactive that every kind o€ spur is useful to incite them to
exertion.
Nor do I believe that the few who are by nature ardent
students need suffer l~arrn from R well-devised system o€
university examinations. It is very pleasant to think of a
young man pursuing n free and open range of reading in his
ancestral library, following his native bent, and so forth; but
such study directed to no definite objects would generally bo
derrultory and unproductive. He might obtain a good deal of
dogant culture, but it is very doubtful whether he would
acquire thoso powers of npplicntion and concentration of
thought which are tho bnsis of sllccess in life. If a man
really loves study aud has gcnius in him, ho will find opportunities
in after-life for indulging his peculiar tastes, and will
not regret tho threo or four years when his rending was
severely restricted to the lines of examination. Of course it
is not desirable to forco dl minds through exactly the snm0
gpooves, and tho immense predominance formerly given to
mathomatics at Cambridge could not bo defended. But the
schemes of examination at d l the principal universities now
offer many different branches in which distinction may be
gained.
The main difficulty which I see in the esamination system
is that it makes the examiner the director of education in place
of the teacher, whose liberty of instruction is certainly rery
much curtail&. The teacher must teach with a constant eye
to the questious likely to be asked, if he is to give his pupils a
fair chance of success, compared with others who are being
specially cccrammeci " for the purpose. It is true that the
teacher may himself be the examiner, but this destroys the
value of the examination as R test or means of public selection.
Mach discussion might be spent, were space available, upon
the question whether the teacher or the examiner is the proper
person to define the lines of study. No doubt a teacher will
generally teach best, and with most satisfaction to himself>
when he C ~U te8Ch what he likes, and, in the case of University
professors or other teachers of grcnt eminence, any restrict,ion