Introductory sessional address delivered at the commencement of the 42nd session of the School of Pharmacy, October 6, 1883 / by Michael Foster.

  • Foster, M. (Michael), Sir, 1836-1907.
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Introductory sessional address delivered at the commencement of the 42nd session of the School of Pharmacy, October 6, 1883 / by Michael Foster. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    position of a fine art, that it is an occupation of life into which a great deal of energy is directed. As far as I understand, the “ coach ” when he takes to coaching pupils does not consider in the first place the nature of the study, but what he is pleased to call “ the examiner’s mind.” He makes a study first of all of the examiners. He knows their whims ; he knows their fancies ; he learns what answers will, if I may say so in the presence of others who are like myself examiners, tickle them most, and he directs his efforts accordingly. Indeed, sir, I understand that some of these “ coaches” who have a large number of pupils take on them the functions of a general. They marshal their forces, and I know very well that in one examination where the viva voce is of some importance, a “coach” has been in the habit of sending his weak, hopeless pupils in first to know what the style of the questions was in order that the hopeful pupils might benefit by the knowledge. This is an additional, and a very serious and important additional difficulty, in taking the results of an exa- mination as really a stamp of the merit of the can- didates who have passed the examination. But happily there is another use of examinations, a more noble one, a use which I believe to be on the whole a greater one, and that is this, that whether there be “ coaches” or not the lad who goes in for an examination in any subject must in some way or another learn something of the subject. The exami- nation compels knowledge, and there are many of us who know that but for an examination into which perhaps we entered for some partly vainglorious purpose, for the mere reason of getting a certificate or winning a medal, we might never have got an in- troduction to a science or a knowledge which soon fascinated us, and to which we have become attached ever since. And I believe it is probable that a great deal of the work of science is first made attractive to men who are introduced into a branch which they are afterwards destined to adorn by an examination of which when they took it in hand they had no idea either of the value or of the bearing. They have gone to it' frequently for purely business ends, like Saul the son of Kish, who for business matters went to seek his father’s asses and found a crown. Very often they have gone in for a medal or a certificate, and in the end have found that w'hich was better than either medal or certificate; they have found knowledge. Now, you will gather from what I have said, that I regard examinations as like many other things in this world, mixed in nature, partly good and partly evil, and it seems to me that one great need of the present time is to take such steps as should minimize the evil and increase the good. Now, I will venture to propose to you a paradox. I believe that the evils of examinations may be diminished, and the good may be increased, by simply multiplying them. I think the evil of examinations lies a great deal in their formal character in their being frequently one supreme effort which is made and is left. I am in- clined to regard that examination as the worst where a lad after two or three years’ study on a variety of subjects, is examined in all of them in the shortest space of time. For instance, in a certain university, the subjects are so many that, as a poor, disappointed, despairing student said to me, preparing for this examination is like driving a lot of pigs. You have no sooner got hold of one subject than the others are all abroad. The worst examination seems to me to be that in which a lad brings up a number of subjects, after a somewhat lengthy preparation, before a group of strange men, of whom he knows nothing, and who know nothing of him, and before whom, to the best of his ability, he there disgorges, if I may use the phrase, his knowledge in a few hours. I do not believe that that examination is one just either to the student,, or, if I may say so, to the examiner. The best examination seems to me that kind of one which is carried out in a partial manner in the School of Science at South Kensington, and which, if fully developed, takes on somewhat of this form, that a lad having to study two, three, or four subjects does not attempt to drive them, so to speak, all abreast, but takes one, or at most two, and devotes his whole- attention to that one or at most two. Then as he attends the lecture, and especially as he carries out the practical work belonging to the lecture, a note is now and again taken by the teacher of the progress which he makes, and any doubt which the teacher may have is remedied by frequent informal exami- nations. At the end of the course there is a formal examination undertaken by the teacher, or if you please, by the teacher with the help of an assessor, in order that things may be straight and square and above-board. But I am one of those who think that no one can judge of a lad’s progress like the man who has actually taught him, the more formal examination becoming, as it were, the crown of the three or four or six months’ work, and the position which he gains in that subject should go as so much to his credit for his final degree or cer- tificate. Then he would turn with a full heart and free mind to another subject, and treat that in the same thorough, honest, straightforward way. That I believe would be a kind of examination against which a coach of the utmost ability would have no power what- ever. But, you will say, it would assume the form of compulsory lectures. No w, in politics, and in the gene- ral conduct of life, I am opposed to compulsion. I am one of those who believe that the art of government consists in developing the free tendencies of the people, and not in manufacturing unnecessary restrictions; that the progress of government consists in the diminution rather than the increase of laws, and that the ideal government is that which in the end finds nothing to do. I am opposed to compulsion ; but I venture to think thatthiscoursewhichlhave sketched out to you would not be a series of compulsory lectures.