exhaustion. More young lives have gone out at the hands of the examination fiend than our school records show. It seems high time that our school policies should recognize the fact that children are not made of putty.

Another evil connected with promotion examinations is the waste of time and energy which they involve. A final examination in a great school or system of schools requires a week or more of precious time, and when the number of examinations held each year is increased, the amount of time thus wasted is increased, though perhaps not proportionately. The writer has known several schools in which full one month each year, or one-tenth of the school session, was spent in what the famous English Protest* aptly calls "the drudge work of examinations."

But this does not tell the whole story, since much time and energy are consumed in preparing for the examinations, i. e., in exercises and efforts which are specially devoted to this one purpose. Much of the drill and rote work occasioned by these examinations is justified by no true end of teaching; on the contrary, it is subversive of true teaching. The term "waste" used above is justified by the fact that the outlay of time and effort involved in the promotion examination makes no compensating return. It is useless as a means of determining the fitness of pupils for promotion, as will be hereafter shown, and yet this is its special purpose. There is no teacher, competent to read and grade examination papers, who does not know as well before as after an examination what pupils in the class deserve promotion.

* The most remarkable document relating to education issued within our knowledge, is the “Protest," against the evils of the examination system of Great Britain, signed by over 400 representative men and women, including such distinguished scholars as F. Max Müller, Francis W. Newman, Frederick Harrison, Arthur S. Napier, W. M. Hicks, George F. Armstrong, Oscar Browning, George J. Romans, Lionel Beale, Sir Henry Thompson, Sir Edwin Arnold, W. R. S. Ralston, etc.

The mischiefs charged against examinations in Great Britain are the same as those that appear here, but they are intensified by the competitive feature which characterizes the English system. The competitive examination is the door to distinctions, money prizes, positions in the civil service, etc. It pervades and dominates the schools and the universities. Children are used in the elementary schools to earn government money, the grants being conditioned on the number of pupils that pass the inspectors' examinations; bright lads in the secondary schools are trained for scholarships; and young men at the universities study for distinctions and prizes. Everything turns on the examinations.

The Protest vigorously arraigns the whole system as attended with "dangerous mental pressure and misdirection of energies and aims." It asserts that it degrades teaching into a trade; makes study a cram for "what will pay;" sacrifices high moral purpose to prize-winning ambition; and subverts the highest purposes of education. It is characterized as "a sacrifice of education to examination."

This Protest, with the names of the signers, was published in "The Nineteenth Century" for November, 1888, with papers by Professors Max Müller, Freeman, and Harrison.

1

REMEDIES FOR EXAMINATION EVILS.

For years past thoughtful superintendents and teachers have been earnestly devising plans to lessen the evils of the examination system, and, as a complete remedy for these evils, a few have seen their way clear to abolish the system itself.

These efforts have taken different directions, the aim of one device being to relieve the "terrible pressure of examinations;" of another, to free instruction and study from their grooving and mechanical influence; of a third, to prevent "vicious cramming;" of a fourth, to remove occasions for dishonesty, and so on.

It may be suggestive and helpful to study several of these remedial devices with some care to ascertain, as far as may be practicable, the extent of their efficiency.

(1) The first of these reforms noted is the disuse of examination results as a means of determining the comparative standing of classes and the success of teachers. Few school reports now contain examination tables giving the percentages of correct answers credited the several classes or the different pupils in the same class. This is not only true, but many thoughtful superintendents have ceased to prepare such tables even for private inspection. This wise change in school administration has greatly lessened, and often removed, the bitter jealousies and rivalries between schools and teachers which once so intensified the pressure of examinations.

(2) Another reform, similar to the above, is the increasing disuse of examination results as a means of comparing pupils. It was once common to arrange the names of pupils after an examination in the order of their percentages, and post or announce the same, as "a reward to the diligent and a terror to the indolent." It was also common to use the coming examination as an incitement or spur to effort, and, as a result of these practices, the strife for percentages was widespread and mischievous. The increasing disuse of these unwise practices is affording some relief from overpressure, but this relief is not yet general.

The use of examination results as a basis for the bestowment of scholastic rewards and honors has never been common in American schools, not even in high schools. This practice has been more prevalent in American colleges, but at no time has it been general in them, and for years past it has been steadily losing ground. There is a deepening belief among college men that the system of prizes and honors is not only responsible for serious evils, including overstrain on the part of the contestants, but that it fails to accomplish its avowed purpose, to wit, the promotion of high scholarship. At best, the system is a continuous spur to only a few students, and these, as a rule, fall into habits of study which are subversive of true learning. The student who studies to pass examinations fails to cultivate his best powers and loses the impulse of the scholar, and he who studies to win a prize or an honor falls under

the influence of low motives, motives that appeal, as the English Protest puts it, "to the lower side of human nature."

College officers are, however, somewhat slow in learning that real teaching does not need artificial props and spurs, but is rather hindered by them. President Adams, of Cornell University, speaking of examinations, avows his belief, that for college students "such artificial spurs or stimulants are not helpful, but, on the contrary, are positively harmful." It must suffice to cite here the experience of the University of Michigan, as stated by President Angell, in the American Supplement to The Nineteenth Century, for March, 1889:

For many years we have had here no marking system, class rank, honors, or prizes of any kind, unless the diploma of graduation be deemed such. Students have been asked to work for the sake of learning. Of course if any were indisposed to work they were sent away; but the appeal has been simply to the desire of the student to train and store his mind.

It is the conviction of those who had previously taught in colleges and universities which have the marking system, class rank, honors, and prizes, and are now teaching here, that the aggregate result under our system is far better. It is possible that in the former institutions a few men at the head of each class who are contending for rank attain to higher technical excellence in minute details of study; but we hold stoutly to the belief that broader, heartier, better work is done by the mass of our students than would be done under the other system, and that the spirit of study begotten by the simple appeal to study for the sake of its attainments and discipline is greatly to be preferred to that which is stimulated by the hope of pecuniary reward or class rank.

The writer's experience as a college officer is in full accord with the above statements.

(3) Another remedy for the overpressure of the final examination, early adopted, was the holding of written examinations monthly or bimonthly, with an examination at the close of the term or year. The object of this expedient was to give the pupils an assurance that their promotion had been largely determined by the prior tests, thus relieving their anxiety at the final examination. But the practical difficulty was to get pupils to rely on such an assurance, especially in the face of the teacher's earnest preparation for the final ordeal and the evident stress otherwise laid upon it. Moreover, it was found that frequent examina tions, with their display of percentages as the end of study, had served "to whet the appetite" for high marks.

It was also found that such frequent examinations not only consumed much time greatly needed for instruction, but that they placed a heavy burden of "drudge work" on teachers. Besides the keeping of classes in a lock-step movement, permitting a simultaneous halt once a month, they resulted in much "company-front" effort, especially in cities.

For these and other reasons the formal monthly examination was gradually abandoned, and it is now found in few schools. A few cities. have weekly or monthly "reviews" in place of formal examinations, and the results of these reviews are combined with the results of the final examination, but these are disappearing.

A

In several cities uniform written examinations are held quarterly; in other cities at the close of each term, and in others twice a year, with or without intervening examinations conducted by principals or teachers. The aim of these different plans is to relieve the pressure of the final examination and lessen other examination evils, but they have at best been attended with only partial success.

As a further means of relief several cities include only a part of the branches in each prior examination, and others so reduce the number of questions as to bring the prior examinations wholly in the usual recitation period.

The fact that most of the cities which still use promotion examinations now hold only two stated examinations each year, is evidence that the expedient of more frequent examinations has not given satisfaction. Experience seems to show that the ills of promotion examinations can not be cured by increasing their number, or by attempts to relieve the pressure of the final examination by distributing it. The term or midyear examination does not necessarily lessen the pressure of the closing examination, but on the contrary it may intensify it.

(4) Another expedient more recently tried is the omission of certain branches in the written examinations for promotion, but this has only served to increase the pressure on the test branches, and hence has afforded little if any relief. The expectation that the plan would result in freer and more rational instruction in the non-test branches may have been partly realized, but the attention of teachers and pupils is concentrated on the branches that "count," and this occasions the neglect of other important studies and exercises.

(5) Another means of relief adopted in several of the larger cities is the omission of stated uniform examinations, and the commitment of all promotion examinations, if held, to the principals of the several schools or districts. This plan has been long used in New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Pittsburg, and several other cities. It avoids the general suspension of the regular work of the schools, the blowing of examination trumpets, the clearing of the decks as if for a battle, and other exciting features of the stated uniform examination. The principals are in close contact with the work of instruction and know the attainments of the several classes. As a result they are able to adapt their tests to the work actually done, and so to distribute them as greatly to lessen excitement, anxiety, and overpressure.

It is for these reasons that superintendents in schools employing from ten to, say, forty teachers have never experienced all of the evils that attend the examination system in large cities. The fact that they are in close touch with the classes in their daily work makes their examinations more like the tests of a teacher, and so less a bugbear.

(6) Another somewhat recent device is the excusing of all pupils from the final examination who have reached a prescribed average

standing in the prior tests.* While this affords relief in the final examination, it increases the pressure in the prior examinations, and, besides, whatever of relief may be afforded is experienced by thej brighter and more capable pupils-the very pupils best prepared to take the examination. The pressure falls all the more heavily upon those faithful and sensitive pupils whose prior success is not an assurance of easy victory.

Moreover, the dubbing of the excused pupils "honor pupils," as is sometimes done, not only unduly flatters them, but it casts a shadow of dishonor on those who are required to take the final examination. It is not easy to draw an "honor" line through the class standing of pupils, for the pupils who deserve most honor are not always found on the upper side of 80 per cent. Besides, promotion is itself an adequate recognition of the pupil's success.

But the plan of excusing a class of pupils from the final examination is a step in the right direction, and when this is taken another higher step seems easy, to wit, the promotion of all pupils without examination who are prepared to do the work of the next higher grade. This step draws the line on fitness, the only requisite for promotion.

(7) All attempts to cure examination ills by what may be called examination treatment having failed, a remedy has been sought in another direction, viz, in the standing of pupils in daily work; and the most common expedient for the utilizing of this factor as a corrective is its combination or union with examination results.

As already shown (p. 30), the more general practice at the present time is to let the pupil's success in daily work count at least one-half; and in several cities this factor counts from two-thirds to four-fifths. The greater the value given to the pupils' daily work the less must be the influence of the examination factor, not only in determining fitness for promotion, but also on prior instruction and study. When pupils come to the final examination, knowing that their promotion is practically settled, that nothing can set aside or take the place of their class record, the anxiety and nervous strain involved in the examination are greatly lessened; and when they are fully assured that their promotion does not depend on the results of the examination, the overpressure involved is reduced to a minimum.

It seems unnecessary to show in detail how the recognition and use of pupils' success in daily work, in their promotion, corrects examination evils, and frees school work from their harmful influence. The important fact, which here needs special emphasis, is that the end sought in all these methods of combining class standing and examination results is not the better determining of the pupil's fitness for promotion, but the lessening or removal of the evils that attend promotion

* This should not be confounded with the practice of excusing pupils of good class standing, as determined by teachers, from the final examination. The prior standing here is an examination standing.