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8£3 THE LEADER, [No- 284, Satubpay,
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DISRAELI AND BOLESTGBROKE. A PROSPECTIVE...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Examination Tests. A Controversy Has Bee...
examinations , third class men very good ones ; and any one who visits the schools may observe that three of the examiners are looking over papers while the fourth examines—a clear proof that the result is not to tell for much in their common judgment . It is to the pass examination , where the object simply is to ascertain whether the candidate knows anything about a certain book , that the real usefulness of the system is confined . There , in cool and experienced hands , it may serve good ends both of justice and of mercy , by
probing cunning plausibility and helping out Knowledge which has been imperfectly expressed on paper . For some " pass" are sly enough to cloak their ignorance on paper in a mist of words , while others , from being totally out of the habit of writing , are almost destitute of the power of literary expression . W ^ e need scarcely say that candidates for the civil appointments ought to be able to express themselves on paper , and ought to get no marks for any knowledge which is not intelligibly expressed .
The apprehension that if the examinations are not conducted publicly the examiners will be earwigged and corrupted , is perfectly preposterous , if the examiners are men of any character and position . And even if such a danger really existed , viva voce examination would not obviate it ; since , in the first place , it would be easy to cog the questions without the slightest risk of discovery ; and , in the second place , as the result must be made up of two elements , the " paper work" and the " vivdvoce , " the vigilant public could never be sure whether the element which they had seen was or was not altered by that which they had not seen . The attempt to use so test of
imperfect and fallacious a an examiner ' s fairness would only lead to groundless jealousies and unjust imputations . The better way would be , giving the questions on paper as at present , to keep the papers , and lay them open to inspection in case of any appeal against the results of the examination . But the best way of all is to appoint trustworthy men as examiners , and then to trust them . It will not do to be poisoning everything with suspicion . Mr . Blackett ' s letter to the Times upon the subject reminded us a little of a certain Athenian who , in a highly excited state of public feeling , discovered a plot for burning the arsenal by sending in a water-gnat with a lamp wick .
But an " Oxford Examiner , " answering Mr . Blackett in the same journal , throws doubt upon the whole system of examination for public appointments . According to him , it is not the men who acquit themselves creditably in examinations that are fit for appointments in India or elsewhere , but the non-reading men—the pride of the cricketfield , the leader of the college steeplechase , the priceless treasure of the college boat . Success in examinations appears , according to this witness , to be more a test of self-sufficiency than of anything else .
This is rather alarming evidence . But if it is true , the first consequence is that the " Oxford Examiner , " and the whole system of which he is a part , are an expensive and pestilent imposture , and ought to be abolished with all speed . Nothing has been more discreditable to the Oxford Dons in all the controversies in which they have been recently involved , than the hatred they have shown for the claims of intellect , even as tested by their own examinations . They" seem to forget that they are thereby repudiating their duty , which is to recognise intellect , and train it , for' the service of the State . Their
selfexposure becomes offensive , wo wonder what sort of advice the " Oxford Examiner " gives his pupils , and whether he bids them aim at success in the university
examinations , or success in the college steeplechase , as the proper object of their expensive residence at Oxford ? Muscular strength is not to be confounded with practical vigour . The . priceless treasure of the college boat is often a mere human bullock ; the pride of the cricket-field a beer-barrel with strong arms and a quick eye ; the winner of the college steeplechase a bullet-headed individual of the jockey species , with as little intellect as nature can put into a man . Sent to India , or any other place of intellectual employment , they would brutal self
sink into abject indolence and - indulgence . If your young civil servant has a strong body as well as a strong head , all the better : he may stick pigs in India , though he will find rowing and cricketing rather at a discount in the tropics . But the strong head is the essential thing ; and this , and all generous ambition , as well as conscientious industry , are to be found , in nineteen cases out of twenty , among the reading men . To give a list of great statesmen , Indian or others , who have not been athletes , would be superfluous till we are furnished with a list of those who have .
A clear-headed and ambitious boy , though he may not have a literary turn , will be sure to acquire the literary knowledge which is required for an appointment , and which is thereby made a practical object to him . Great men are cited who knew very little , and , therefore , would have failed in examinations . They knew very little , because nothing was required of them . The Duke of Wellington , perhaps , did not know the first book of Euclid j but will anybody tell us that if the first book of Euclid had stood
in the Duke of Wellington ' s way at the entrance of his profession , he would not have surmounted it ? Of course we do not deny that there are such things as mere bookworms who succeed in examinations but are destitute of practical power , thanks , in great measure , to our neglect of physical education . But surely there is common sense enough even in the heads of parents to prevent a purblind
Dominie Sampson from frequently becoming a candidate for political employment . Even if we get two or three occasionally , special work may be found for £ hem . The government at Calcutta probably has employment for a few pundits . A mere animal , on the other hand , is good for nothing . And , therefore , it is not on that account that we would give up the test of examination . We will give it up only when we find one more perfect in itself , and equally free from the influence of nepotism and corruption .
8£3 The Leader, [No- 284, Satubpay,
8 £ 3 THE LEADER , [ No- , Satubpay ,
Disraeli And Bolestgbroke. A Prospective...
DISRAELI AND BOLESTGBROKE . A PROSPECTIVE JtEVIJEW . Although history may not , as a despairing philosophy has sometimes dreamed , repeat itself , although no two characters are alike really , yet certain broad and coarse resemblances may be traced between epochs , as between men . Thus the English and French revolutions , the characters of Charles and Louis , Cromwell and Napoleon , have been laid out in parallel lines , but neither the events nor the characters have any resemblance except that the revolutions were revolutions ; that the kings were Icings who died on the scaffold ; the usurpers great and successful soldiers . Thus , also , there is a similar shadowy likeness between Louis XIV . and the Czar Nicholas ; between the wars of William and Marlborouqh , and the present contest . Both monarchs were aggressive ; both found themselves face to face with Europe , or nearly so ; both were served by astute Ministors ; both were opposed by a
confederacy , in which England played a conspicuous part . But there the shadowy analogy ends ; so far , nothing is tancy , but fact ; we neither can nor desire to carry it farther . The Mablbobottgh of the modern grand alliance has not yet appeared on the scene ; and if he had , it is not our function to predict his victories . fanciful
A kind of parallel more , more capricious , more serious , yet infinitely trivial , claims our notice . In the war of the Succession , Mablbokotjgh won all the victories , and brought the Grand Monarque more than once upon his knees , but Harle y and Bolingbroke made the peace . And what peace , good reader , was it , but the peace of Utrecht ?—the opprobrium of English
history . We have remarked that our Marlborotjgh has not yet stepped forth from the ranks ; but our Bolingbroke is already in silent evolution ; is already learning his part ; already anxiously rehearsing in private life the preliminaries of a peace of Utrecht for the nineteenth century . Yes : there is among the pretenders to national leader
British statesmanship and - ship one who takes Bolingbroke for his model—one who sets up Henry St . John on a pedestal , and worships at its base . The man most anxious to wield the war with Eussin , so far as Eng land is concerned , the man most anxious to have an active finger in the making of the peace with Kussia , Mr . Benjamin Disraeli , is fain to believe himself the BoimaBEOKE of the nineteenth century ; in
short , the latest edition of Henry St . John , bound in the Toryism of the Desert . Mr . Disraeli has attempted to portray a great variety of heroes . He has painted Alroy ; he has lyrically sketched Contarini Fleming ; he has idealised Baron Kotiischild and X-ord John Manners ; he has rhapsodised X < ord George Bentinck . The " Young Duke" was not beneath him ; nor , as he thought , was Sir Robert Peel above him . But these were the " fancies of a
wasted youth ; " these were the capricious preludes of the grander strain that his manhood would elaborate . True , it was not his to write the " Revolutionary Epic" after all ; it was not his to be the prophet of Young England ; it was not his to be the improvised squire of all the squires—the head and front of the bovine policy . Far higher destinies were reserved for the Arab who made his way into the councils of the Anglo-Saxon ; Fate had given him a commission to write , not a
new decalogue from some Welsh Sinai—but another novel , of which the hero should bo Bolingbroke . We confess we were alarmed when tvg heard it . And with reason . For docs not Disraeli propose to become one of our rulers , and to have a hand in concluding peace with Russja ? What statesman is the idol of his heart—Chatham ? No ; but the
author of the peace of Utrecht ; the man who helped most to " break up the European confederacy against Louis JQV . by basely abandoning our allies ; the man who bartered his country ' s honour for a mess of pottage . If you were to pick out two men who made tho name of England the synonym of treachery on the Continent in the eighteenth century , they would be Bolingbroke and Bute . Yet the former is the idol of Mr . DisitAT : r / r .
For our part , at this time of day , wo are not inclined to discuss the merits and demerits of the treaty . It was the manner in which the English Ministers made tho treaty that showed the characters of the Ministers themselves . " Whatever judgment wo may be disposed to form , " says Mr . Ilallam , " ne to tho political nccofl-Bity of leaving Spain and America in tho possession of Philip , it is impossible to justify tho course ot
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 1, 1855, page 10, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_01091855/page/10/
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