would strike off the languages, and let
the candidate get up the literature as he chose. The basis of a
candidate's literary knowledge, and his first introduction to
literature, ought to be his own language: but he may extend his
discrimination and his power by other literatures, either in
translations or in originals, as he pleases; still the examination, as
before, should test the discrimination and the power, and not the
vocabulary of the languages themselves.
In order to do full justice to classical antiquity, I would allow
markings at the rate of 500 for Political Institutions and History, and
250 for Literature. Some day this will be thought too much; but
political philosophy or sociology may become more systematic than at
present, and history questions will then take a different form.
In like manner, I would abolish the language-examination in modern
languages, and give 250 marks for the literature of each of the three
modern languages--French, German, Italian. The history would be taken as
Modern History, with an adequate total value.
The objections to this proposal will mainly resolve themselves into its
revolutionary character. The remark will at once be made that the
classical languages would cease to be taught, and even the modern
languages discouraged. The meaning of this I take to be, that, if such
teaching is judged solely by its fruits, it must necessarily be
condemned.
The only way to fence this unpalatable conclusion, is to maintain that
the results could not be fully tested in an examination as suggested.
Some of these are so fine, impalpable, and spiritual in their texture,
that they cannot be seized by any questions that can be put; and would
be dropped out if the present system were changed. But results so
untraceable cannot be proved to exist at all.
[LANGUAGE QUESTIONS TAKE THE PLACE OF THE SUBJECT.]
So far from the results being missed by disusing the exercises of
translation, one might contend that they would only begin to be
appreciated fairly when the whole stress of the examination is put upon
them. If an examiner sets a paper in Roman Law, containing long Latin
extracts to be translated, he is starving the examination in Law by
substituting for it an examination in Latin. Whatever knowledge of Latin
terminology is necessary to the knowledge of Law should be required, and
no more. So, it is not an examination in Aristotle to require long
translations from the Greek; only by dis
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