EXAMINATION-MARKS IN THEIR GLORY.
THE Daily Telegraph tells us of the great triumph which the system of Examination-marks has obtained by its extension to the science of Cookery, and gives us in proof questions with marks attached which have been set at South Kensington by the examiners in that great art to students emulous of diplomas. "A paper of twenty-five questions, in which a possible total of 1,000 marks can be reached, lies before us," says the Telegraph of Wednesday. " How would you grill a pound of rump-steak?" asks the twelfth question. " How would you prevent it from getting dried up? What time would it take to cook ?" is a ques- tion for the perfect answering of which 60 marks are allowed. Then comes,—" How would you prepare a dish of mutton cutlets? Describe the whole process (45 marks)." " How would you make what is called melted butter ? (25 marks)." " How would you prepare a cup of bright, clear, and fine-flavoured coffee ? Which of the various kinds of berries should you select, and what quantity of ground coffee would you allow for each cup ? (25 marks)." This is indeed a great advancement for the Marks system, but hardly so great a one as the development given it the other day by a vacation party of University men who, in their delight at the discriminating power of the system, agreed to give marks privately to every unit of beauty or sublimity Nature should present to them on their travels, and to compare their results on the close of their examining tour, when, so the report says, it was discovered that the various examiners had come to very near the same conclusion, mot only as to the hills and river-reaches and waterfall. and glens which had passed in the Honours division, in the first divikion, and in the second division, and had been plucked altogether by these adventurous measurers of nature's charms, but even as to the individual rank
to be assigned to each in each class. The statement is definite enough, though we have no sufficient information as to the beauties of nature which were " gulfed " or " ploughed," and whether the marks given were independent of the weather in which the particular landscapes were seen, or were awarded to units of landscape and weather com- bined. One can imagine the Jungfrau in a storm of thunder and lightning cowing out Senior Wrangler, but the Jungfran in a day of mist and drizzle being very properly " gulfed." Thus there must have been even more, much more, difficulty in deciding on the unit of phenomenon to which marks should be assigned, than Lady Barker, of the Kensington Cookery School, can ever have had in this respect, for a white soup, or a rump-steak, or a dish of melted butter, or a dish of cutlets, is a perfectly separable phenomenon, the absolute excellence of which cannot depend on any adjuncts, whether of climate or even of temper. If the Uni- versity enthusiasts were really able to apply their mark system with any substantial agreement to the beauties of nature, it seems pretty clear that they would have been able to apply them with certainly greater success to the beauties of society. A woman or a man is at least as definite a phenomenon as a dish, and would clearly include everything in him or her calculated to impress a companion agreeably or the reverse. If the mark system could but be generalised, how happy it would make Mr. Galton ! And why not ? With a thousand marks' scale for everything, it might be possible to determine that a perfect lobster patty should gain the same number of marks among dishes which " Peter Plym- ley's Letters" should receive in the rank of political literature, or the late Henry Drummond among successful members of the House of Commons, or " Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings" amongst Charles Dicken's works. Perhaps the information thus conveyed might not be very definite, but then, as a very excellent examiner said the other day in a learned body, "Whenever I commit myself to a given number of marks as the exact equivalent of any candi- date's merit, I always feel I am telling lies "; and if it is useful to commit yourself to a misleading scale of appreciation in judging of definite answers to questions, it may be useful to generalise the information so gained, and compare the place at which one candi- date stands in one table of relative merit with that at which another stands in a quite different table of relative merit.
No doubt, in carrying out minutely in practical life this fanciful mark system, the doubts which have already often occurred to puzzled examiners would repeat themselves. For instance, exami- ners have contended, we think justly, that it would be only right to give negative marks for answers which not only show ignorance, but betray so false a conception of principles, that even the questions answered rightly must be right more by accident than through any intelligent comprehension of the subject. Such a principle, we think, should certainly be imported into the Cookery examination at South Kensington. If any one there replied that a mutton- chop should be fried, the candidate making so radical a mistake of principle should not only gain no marks, but should have, say fifty, deducted from any he or she might otherwise gain. Of what account would it be that he or she could write out a description of the proper way of making short-crust, or of serving up a dish of grilled mushrooms, if, in the elementary fact of all cooking, the use and abuse of the
frying-pan, gross ignorance were shown ? So, too, if any candidate declared that in order to make good tea, the tea should be allowed to " brew " for five or ten miniutes, there should be no mercy shown to one so grossly ignorant of the first great principle of tea. Again, in the vaca- tion rambles of the enthusiasts for marks to whom we have referred, we have no doubt that a corresponding principle must have been adopted. How could you fairly compare the relative beauties of two glacier-views, without deducting marks for the ugly desolation of moraine and mud in any glacier landscape in which the moraine was a conspicuous feature ? How could you estimate the beauty of a Surrey heath, without taking off a great deal for such a blot upon it as a brick-field, with all its clay and hideous monotony of dull cubes ? How could you give marks to an English village, without large deductions for obtrusive pigstyes and advertising-boards covered with notices of all the papers that have the "largest circulation in the world," and all the four-post bedsteads which are " sent free by post." No doubt Mr. Boyce, who has an eccentric taste in pictorial art, is apt to introduce ground "to let on building leases," with all its litter, into his clever pictures, but we think he must have some notion that painting should not deal by preference with the beauti- ful, but rather with the imitable,—and these things are certainly very easily imitable on canvas. Again, if ever marks should be applied, as they may one day be, in case our examining tourists follow up their own precedent, by young men to the qualities of young ladies, or vice versa, with the view of selecting as a partner for life the candidate who gaiLl the largest number of marks in a competitive examination for general companion- ability, it will certainly be necessary to strike off marks very freely for what may be called negative qualities. If a thousand marks were the maximum that could be gained, age, of course, being previously determined, a sagacious examiner would probably allow 100 marks for beauty, 50 for elegance in dress, 400 for char- acter—including sweetness of temper-300 for activity of sympathy with the tastes and pursuits of others, and 150 for a general margin of unenumerated graces. But then, of course, under all these heads, it would be necessary to have the right of making large positive deductions. If a girl were not only plain, but vacant-faced, and yet had the languishing airs of a particular class of beauties, it would become necessary to make large positive deductions, both under some subordinate division, such as Sincerity,' of the head of Character,' and also under the head of ' Beauty,' on the distinct ground that such a characteristic both grievously enhances every fault of feature and carriage, and also gives an air of pinchbeck and falsehood to the character itself. So, too, if she not only did not dress well, but insisted on wearing a jeweller's shop on her hands and arms and in her ears, bell-pulls on her head, and fifty pounds' weight of flounces about her skirts,— or on the other hand, on making herself hideously neat in close- fitting brown holland, without any touch of relief to the monotony of the dreary ensemble,—then, clearly, instead of allowing any marks for dress, a great many more should be deducted than the maximum which might have been gained. Again, if instead of being active in sympathy with the tastes and pursuits of others, she could talk of nothing but servants and shopping, and re- garded all the occupations and thoughts of men as the kind of things which keep them out of mischief,' but have no meaning in themselves for the more rational sex, clearly a minus quantity of 300 would not be an inadequate appreciation of so formidable a demerit. Just as a cook who sent up a potato in a sodden condition should hardly be allowed to take credit at all, even for a chef d'ceurre in the shape of a mayonnaise ; just as a man who wore a blue coat with brass buttons should be plucked for dress without even glancing at his hat, his tie, or his shirt- front ; just so a girl who could only gossip or giggle with girls, and not feel the least interest in any subject that men understand, should be rejected at once in an examination for companionability as a wife, without even weighing any of the per contras.
But these are great subjects. Instead of flying so high,— though even this would hardly be so audacious as giving marks to woodland, mountain, and lake, to glacier and tempest, to dawn and sunset,—we would suggest to those enthusiasts for the mark system to take a hint from the Cookery School at South Kensington, and begin with more humble attempts. They might try giving marks to the various parties of the season, and publishing the estimates of the different examiners in the Morning Post, for the sake of ultimate comparison ; or estimating in the same way the various orators at Exeter Hall, giving a negative quantity for every sign of Peckaniffian ostentatiousness and pretence. In that fashion they might gradually feel their way to the more elaborate use of marks for appreciating the character of an omelette or a sunrise on the plan now adopted at Kensington and by the enthusiasts of the Uni- versity. But at present, the attempt has been too sudden for success. If the Recording Angel estimates our merits and demerits by marks, even though he has the range of the whole series of numbers between a negative infinity and a positive infinity, he must have had a very careful training in the method, to apply it with anything like justice. And perhaps, on the whole, human arithmetic is as yet hardly equal to the task of estimating by marks even the difference between a good cup of tea and a bad one, much less the difference between the beauty of Venice and the beauty of Rotterdam, or between the loveliness of a rainbow on the sea, and the loveliness of a triumphal arch decorated with flags and ribbons.
Previous page
