1868, and made between the New Zealander, who is described as an aboriginal native of New Zealand, of the one part, and William Eicke, of the other part."

may

I be allowed to supplement these reported instances by two occurrences very shortly before his death, both strongly typical of justice "done in the gate."

One was a case where the so-called practice of the Divorce Court was under review. These appeals from this to that tribunal are new-fangled, and for a year have spread consternation in that nest of separate procedure. On this occasion the fair appellant, who sought leave to petition for perpetual alimony, appeared in person. "Let me look at the statute," ejaculated the late Master of the Rolls. "Give me a principle why the words granting a discretion to the judge should not be followed." "Invariable practice of the court," hesitatingly and delicately suggested the counsel. "Give me a principle," thundered Sir George. It was an awful moment. "Invariable practice of the

court," agonizedly reiterated counsel. Why, how can the discretion have been exercised at all, if your practice be invariable?" was the retort.

The other was a scene still more dramatic. An aged lady, armed with the plumes and reticule that stamp the female litigant, rushed into the Court of Appeal. "Well, ma'am, and what do you want?" he colloquially demanded from the bench. Justice, my Lord," and a long story followed. Her husband had been mistakenly found a lunatic, and his property misdealt with. "Send for the First Commissioner in Lunacy," at once commanded the late Master of the Rolls; and sure enough an affable gentleman arrived an hour later in a cab, and after a personal conference the old lady, who had incurred neither expense nor delay, was dispatched on her way rejoicing.

Such homely and informal methods, allied to a mind at once legally and worldly wise, suggest a contrast in part advantageous in part perhaps, however necessarily so, the adverse to the judicial pomps of the past. In the pages of Bacon an era confronts us when the office of judge was still tremendous, and mysteriously prerogatived to "threaten and command;" its idea is portrayed in language resembling the description of his "Meуаλожρéπηs" by Aristotle.

*Ex parte Hall, in re Cooper, 19 Ch. D. 584.

"Judges ought to be more learned than witty, reverend than plausible, more advised than confident. . . . The parts of a judge in hearing are four-to direct the evidence, to moderate length, repetition, or impertinency of speech, to recapitulate, select, and collate the material points of that which hath been said. Whatever is above these is too much."

But if the tendency of a "practical" age is to disregard the symbol and to criticise even that for which the symbol stands, none the less is it indisputable that the example of such a judge as the late Master of the Rolls, vigilant, exact, businesslike as well as erudite, at once quick and sure, wise as well as learned, wholly unbiassed, and severely self-sacrificing, realises the spirit whose embodiment may at other times have been more gracefully signified.

"Judges ought, above all," proceeds the great writer above cited, "to remember the conclusion of the Roman Tables, Salus populi, suprema lex,' and to know that laws, except they be in order to that end, are but things captious, and oracles not well inspired."

No judge that ever lived recognised these aims of the law more sagaciously or effectively than Sir George Jessel.

WALTER S. SICHEL.

THE EXAMINATION-CRAZE.

A CONTRIBUTION TO THE CONTROVERSY.

"Alle Gegner einer geistreichen Sache schlagen nur in die Kohlen; diese springen umher und zünden da, wo sie sonst nicht gewirkt hätten."-GOETHE. ENGLAND'S foremost leaders of thought and of culture have for forty years been protesting with ever-increasing volume and emphasis against the prevailing examination-craze, and at last this uneasy restlessness under a galling yoke culminated in a striking and most important protest, published by eminent teachers and thinkers in the November number of the Nineteenth Century. To the remarkable array of names at the foot of that protest might certainly be added Professor A. de Morgan, Sir John Herschell, the Rev. Mark Pattison,* the Rev. Frederick D. Maurice, Dr. Whewell, Mr. John Ruskin, Mr. Matthew Arnold,+ the Rev. Edward Thring (late head-master of Uppingham School), and many others.

The editor of The Universal Review has undertaken to champion the opposite cause. He is clearly in his right to do so; but a contest on which such grave issues depend should be fought with other weapons than mere scurrility, sneers, and careful avoidance of the points raised by his opponents. He undertakes, for example, an analysis of the names at the foot of the protest, and singles out some twenty of them as special objects of his scorn on grounds such as the following:-Because the Rev. H. R. Haweis has written an article on the stage, which is at variance with his own views on that subject as set forth in "Mummer-worship" fathered by him, therefore the reverend gentleman's views on education are to be

* The rector of Lincoln used to complain that, whilst continental scholars were engaged in original research, their English compeers were busy marking and scheduling examination papers.

† Mr. Arnold, many years ago, told " my lords" that their system of payment by results leads to a minimum of teaching, and from that position he has not receded.

thought lightly of by the reader. Oxford professors, men engaged in the highest walks of teaching, are also unceremoniously brushed aside, because their testimony is inconvenient to him. One hundred and ninety-eight names, such as Lord Armstrong's, Sir James Crichton-Browne's, and many others of equal weight, are by one fell swoop of his editorial pen swept away, because, forsooth, they are not actual teachers. But many have been teachers formerly, all of them have been taught, and the bulk of them have been ground, either themselves or their children, in the examination mill, and have been able to observe its workings for a long course of years. But they are disqualified, because, unfortunately, they do not agree with the editor. Ladies, who for many years have been principals of large schools, and whom a wide range of experience has rendered specially competent to form a sound opinion on this subject, are summarily disposed of as "ladies."

When a famous and gifted historian and learned scholar sets up a lofty ideal of a true student, the editor sneeringly says: "We are men and women, not angels with lexicons under our wings.

We want some tangible, visible sign of success; we want to hear the mob shout' hurrah!'" etc., etc. In one word, don't hold up to us any exalted notions of your own; we are grovellers, and wish to remain grovellers to the end of the chapter. Again, the able editor professes disappointment at the absence of names of inspectors and examiners- of names, that is, whose owners would stultify themselves and their calling by admitting the justice of the complaints; and, indeed, many of them might think themselves precluded from joining the movement by the etiquette of their profession or of the Department.*

Next let us see how the able editor deals with the Board Schools. The School Board for London alone own and administer upwards of three hundred schools; add to these the great number of voluntary schools, whom the editor wholly ignores, and the result will be several hundred schools in the metropolis alone. All through the country the elementary schools are counted by thousands. Now out of this vast number he has written to seventy-five! and, from the answers received, he jumps at the

* An assistant inspector told the present writer that, having once, at a public meeting, expressed his qualified disapproval of certain provisions of the Code, the Department came down upon him like a load of bricks."

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conclusion that "the large majority of Board Schools" are on his side. And what was the question he put to them? Why, this: "Should competitive examinations be abolished?" Had the editor been acquainted with the merest rudiments of the question with which he presumes to deal, he would have known that, in the words of Sir John Lubbock, his own supporter, "in elementary schools the system is not competitive," and that, accordingly, Board School teachers, as such, are but slightly interested, and little competent to be trustworthy guides, in this question. But they are admirable judges of our unique system of payment by results; and if the editor is really sincerely anxious to elicit the truth, let him ask Mr. Heller, the secretary of the N.U.E.T., also the present and former presidents, and indeed the whole body of the Union, whether external examinations and payment by results should be retained, modified, or rejected, and then he will be in possession of a verdict worth quoting, worth acting upon.

In other ways, too, the editor has proved his thorough unacquaintance with even the nature of the question at issue. Take the following sentence: "Well, it is better even to be 'crammed' than to be empty either in head or body; and the effect of cramming, if it does nothing else, shows that the man can carry a certain amount of knowledge for a certain time." So that this editor is still under the spell of the old Palmerstonian fallacy, is actually carried away by the mere metaphor of the word "cram," and thinks that because a sausage is crammed full of meat, therefore a crammed man is cram-full of knowledge. It is doubtful whether ever a metaphor has been more misleading, more fruitful of misapprehension, than this monosyllable "cram" has been. It does not at all mean being chock-full of real knowledge, but solely being full of a certain sham article, that passes for knowledge; in the words of George Eliot, of" disconnected facts and unproved rules; mere "starch," as she calls it, and not solid, honest substance. Had the editor said, "It is better to have your purse full of counterfeit coin than to have no money at all,” he would have been nearer the mark; but he would not have carried the unwary reader with him.

Or take another of the editor's bold statements. There are, he says, only two conceivable ways of filling the vacant posts in the Civil Service-either by "patronage, which means favouritism,