but I am confident that if the plan which I have outlined is one that should succeed, it can be worked out successfully in many places. It is a work, however, that demands our united efforts.

E

CHAPTER III

THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF EXAMINATIONS FOR

ADMISSION TO COLLEGE

XAMINATIONS are presumably means to an end, not an end in themselves. Their value will be determined by the service they render in the attainment of the desired ends. In school work the interested parties are the pupil who is entitled to make the most of himself, the teacher whose professional reputation is at stake, and the school or educational system which is supported directly or indirectly by the public for the public good.

There can be no doubt of the educational value of examinations to those who conduct the examinations. Our daily experience shows conclusively enough that success in life depends largely upon the critical acumen which precedes and influences judgment. Perhaps this is one reason (it is hardly becoming in me to make the suggestion) why colleges cling so tenaciously to the privilege of examining candidates for admission.

Ability to pass examinations an asset. But seriously, it is good for a boy occasionally to have to pass formal examinations. He may some day want to be a civil servant a policeman, a street sweeper, or a teacher (this is not intended to be an anticlimax) — and then he

A revised reprint from the SCHOOL REVIEW, 1903, used by courtesy of the publishers.

will be required to come to terms with a list of questions and an examining board. Moreover, he will have frequent use in life for the ability to conceal his own ignorance. And when we consider, in the words of Richard Baxter, "how very little it is that we know in comparison to that we are ignorant of," it will be seen that the ability to veneer this vast body of ignorance with a respectable coating of usable information is an accomplishment not lightly to be regarded. It might also be mentioned in this appreciation of the educational value of examinations (for those who are examined) that there is nothing more likely to take the conceit out of a fellow than a try at a paper set by persons whom he doesn't know in a subject which he thinks he does know. A modern philosopher has remarked: "A reasonable amount of fleas is good for a dog; they keep him f'm broodin' on bein' a dog."

Testing instructional efficiency. The topic, as I understand it, excludes the consideration of examinations given in the course of instruction for the purpose of making that instruction more efficient. Such tests as written recitations, quizzes, term and final examinations, and the like are of the greatest value to the teacher who is really concerned in educating his pupils. These examinations are indispensable; they need no argument to justify the position they hold in our scheme of instruction. But examinations conducted by outside authorities are in another category. They, too, may have a place and be valuable, but the justification must come from some other

source.

Valuation of extra-mural tests. From the standpoint of the pupil, examinations conducted by persons

outside the school are far and away more harmful than helpful. I grant that they do tend to keep lazy boys up to the scratch, to show the conceited how little they know, to train the nervous and scatter-brained to hold themselves in and do something on time: in short, they do help a boy to pull himself together and concentrate himself on a task which requires all strength and ingenuity. But what is it all worth in comparison with the attendant evils? The tendency to substitute for high ideals in scholarship a mere caricature of learning, to put forward a mechanical process as the summum bonum of the school course, to replace clear thinking by guesswork, to regard the examiner as a person to be satisfied at any costhonestly, if possible; dishonestly, if necessary. Any scheme that puts a premium on success at a particular time or under peculiar conditions, strains the moral fiber. It is certainly good for moral fiber to withstand a strain; but, when for the sake of reward or fear of failure the strain becomes unendurable, the result is altogether bad.

The recent experience of an eastern preparatory school is by no means exceptional, save in the extent of the fault and the publicity given to it. The relation between candidate and examiner does not promote high moral standards, witness the need of proctors and the unwillingness of boys, even college students, to assume the moral responsibility of taking examinations without watchers. The overseers of a New England college have recently published the following criticism of prevailing student

customs:

It is well understood that the student body in most colleges has always sanctioned a highly artificial code of morals which

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thoughtful men would repudiate at once in the domain of business or of society. This peculiar code, which tolerates cheating in examinations, justifies the destruction of private property in the celebration of athletic victories, encourages boorish manners and various forms of reprehensible conduct and causes strained relations between professors and students, was perhaps a natural outgrowth of the inflexible curriculum and the paternal form of college government which prevailed until comparatively recent years.

The situation is a relic of that educational barbarism which assumed no honesty in the scholar, and no sympathy in the master.

On this point, therefore, let there be no misunderstanding. To the boy who is examined by outside authorities for the sake of personal gain, there can be no benefit worth mentioning which cannot be secured equally well in some less reprehensible way; but, on the contrary, the process tends to lower our intellectual and moral standards, a fact which, through long familiarity, we have come to minimize or to disregard entirely.

The need for outside examinations. But, as I have said, there is a place for examinations, and in that place they have a distinct value. Outside examinations are imperative whenever the secondary schools are unable or unwilling to assume the responsibility of meeting the requirements for admission to colleges and universities. If good work is to be done in our colleges and professional schools, a suitable foundation must be laid in the field of secondary education. If the secondary schools will not, or cannot, assure the strength of that foundation, then it is imperative that the higher institutions impose their own tests. Weak schools, of course, may be left out