Professor Fawcett, M.P. for Hackney, made an excellent speech on
Education at Salisbury on Monday, in distributing the prizes awarded after the Oxford and Cambridge local examinations there, in which he insisted on the danger of distributing education too thinly over a very wide surface, and told his audience that no good examiner will tolerate answers to questions given in a loose, shambling manner. Mr. Fawcett also called attention afresh to the indications of the disposition of the Government to give up the competitive test for the Civil Service, which he strongly disapproved. "I should be prepared to admit as freely as any one," said Professor Fawcett, "that an examination is not an infallible test of fitness, but however highly the imperfection of the test may be estimated, it may with confidence be maintained that, as a test of fitness, it is incalcu- lably more accurate than when men are selected by political favour or for family connection." That is the whole truth. The cleverest examinee will, of course, not seldom be inferior in fitness to men whom he has beaten, or who had not even enough chance to try, but how often would this ideal candidate have succeeded, had be relied on political patronage or family caste?
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