-- [To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] 6111, — Is not Mr.
Quick a little unjust to the present system of examination in elementary schools P Or is he unaware that, besides the test of reading aloud, there is in every class the further test of intelligent comprehension of the matter, by means of collective questioning ; that in every standard i(except the first) a problem is set as one of the questions in arithmetic, also to test intelligence ; and that the greatest importance is attached to an oral examination in arithmetic, ;directed towards the same end P These oral tests, it is true, do not affect the "pass," but they do affect very considerably the inspector's general estimate of the school expressed in the "' merit " mark, fair, good, or excellent. Then again, Mr. 'Quick altogether ignores the class-subjects, which are examined orally, and must depend chiefly on intelligence for their success, and which have nothing whatever to do with passes or per-centage, while they carry a considerable maxi- mum grant. He writes, too, as if discipline and conduct were not observed and taken into account, and as if there were no such things as inspectors' reports, in which the intelligence and behaviour are for ever the subject of remark. Let us be fair to the Code. From the moment when the country entrusted to volunteers the national duty of education, some system of payment by results was made inevitable ; and the Code is an attempt to harmonise various considerations—financial, educational, and administrative—under that system. A good deal of " form " has been worked into Mr. Lowe's Trpirrn Sus, but we cannot reach the nix at one bound. Mr. Quick and the signatories of the recent protest are agreed in forgetting that the process of evolution under such conditions must be gradual. They are not accurate in their statements, or just in their criticisms, nor do they inform the world how the ideal which they desire is to be practically attained.
Your other correspondent, Mr. Yoxall, calls a pass " an almost impossible maximum." Those of your readers who have read the instructions to inspectors will be puzzled to divine his meaning. And how is it that eighty-seven children in every hundred attained this " almost impossible maximum "
in the past year ?—I am, Sir, &c., LECTOR.
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