At Eastbourne on Wednesday, Lord Hartington distributed the prizes gained
in the recent Cambridge local examinations, and complimented the Universities highly on the spontaneous and excellent work they were doing in relation to their local examinees. Ile said that Mr. Forster was beginning to believe that the middle- class schools should be inspected by the State, and if that was ever to be effected, the experience of the Universities in carrying on these examinations, and sometimes also inspections of middle- class schools, would be of the first importance. Lord Hartington doubted if examination alone would be a sufficient test of a good school, without inspection, and he is certainly right. Inspection discovers, and may therefore correct, obsolete or clumsy methods of teaching, which mere examination would hardly ever betray. And even where mere examination proves the inefficiency of the teaching, it is only inspection which shows to what the ineffi- ciency is due, and how it may be removed.
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