with writing upon them, to convey his wants. Now, this was a real and genuine experiment, if properly interpreted. The question raised was the dog's power of visual discrimination, as tested by his marking the difference between the different inscriptions on the cards. If the distinction of the words passed his faculty of visual perception of form, the operation was hopeless; if within his visual powers, it became a question of inducing his attention by sufficient motives, and this also revealed a point of character bearing on the docility of animals. Sir John, no doubt, kept within the bounds of humane treatment; but we know that this difficulty in animal training is too often surmounted by persistent cruelty. The truth is, however, that the ordinary experimenter on the powers of animals of acquisition has been long outdone by the professional exhibitor of their wonderful feats. A canary in Edinburgh offered to read my fortune for a penny. Of course, I knew that the animal was a charlatan; but even to educate it up to this point was no small effort. One of the finest similes in our literature is Dekker's untamable as flies," but it has been fasified by the perseverance of trainers. Not to quote from recorded examples of the teaching of the common fly, the flea, which I suppose is in a lower place in the intellectual scale, was long exhibited in London as a performer of industrial avocations.

My closing observation relates to the present position of the science of Mind, usually called Psychology, in the programme of the British Association. Taken as a whole, it is nowhere; it would not properly come into any section. Taken in snatches, it appears in several places: it would come in under Zoology, which embraces all that relates to animals; under Physiology, in connexion with the nervous system and the senses; and it figures still more largely, although in an altogether subordinate and scarcely acknowledged fashion, in the section on Anthropology. Indeed, to exclude it from this section would be impossible; man is nothing without his mind.

Now, while Zoology and Physiology would keep the study of mind within narrow limits, there is no such narrowness in the present section. In the ample bosom of Anthropology,

any really valuable contribution to the science of mind should have a natural place. The subject only needs to be openly named and avowed, instead of coming in by side doors and indirect approaches.

In saying this much, however, I am quite ready to make allowance for a difficulty. The science of mind, taken in all its compass, raises a number of controversies, which might be well enough in a separate society, but would be very unsuited to the sectional discussions of this Association. The perception of a material world, the origin of our ideas, the mystical union of mind and body, free will, a moral sense -are points that I should exclude from the topics of Anthropology, wide as that department is; and the more so, that it has already on its hands the consideration of matters whose importance depends upon their bearing on far more burning controversies than any of these.

Psychology, however, has now a very large area of neutral information; it possesses materials gathered by the same methods of rigorous observation and induction that are followed in the other sciences. The researches of this section exemplify some of these, as I have endeavoured to point out. If these researches are persisted in, they will go still farther into the heart of Psychology as a science; and the true course will be to welcome all the new experiments for determining mental facts with precision, and to treat Psychology, with the limitations I have named, as an acknowledged member of the section. To this subdivision would then be brought the researches into the brain and nerves that deal with mental function; the experiments on the senses having reference to our sensations; the whole of the present mathe-. matics of man, bodily and mental; the still more advanced inquiries relating to our intelligence; and the nature of emotion, as illustrated by expression, in the manner of Darwin's famous treatise. Indeed, if you were to admit such a paper as that contributed by Mr. Spencer to the Anthropological Institute, you would commit yourselves to a much farther raid on the ground of Psychology than is implied in such an enumeration as the foregoing.

ON THE PRESSURE OF EXAMINATIONS.1

The Protest too unqualified. Writer's experience of examinations as a student in Arts, with reference to the two defects of the system of examination. State of matters at Aberdeen University at date of the article (1889). Examinations as conducted by the teachers themselves. Case of the independent examiner. Objection to the absolute exemption of a teacher from control. Is a teacher necessarily hampered by the fact that his pupils will be tested by an outside examiner? Necessity of forcing upon a pupil repugnant tasks. Case of Gladstone. J. S. Mill's opinion. Tributary causes of the alleged evils of the examination system. Danger to health from over-study. Disregarding the different powers of nutrition that different studies possess. Question of the value of classical study. Languages, without the Literatures, unsuitable as intellectual tests. Official prescriptions in Science. Subjects in the teaching of which selection is required. Examples,—especially, English Literature and Civil History. Examining, like teaching, an art, and so open to perpetual improvement. Tips and note-books. Summary of results. Hibbert Trust and its travelling scholarships. Competition but a phase of the struggle for existence. The intoxication of being first. Popular

exaltation of the first.

IN offering a few remarks on the Protest against the present abuses of the newly introduced Examination system, I may say, at the outset, that, while admitting the tendency of the system to produce such evils in a greater or less degree, my own experience would not entitle me to depict the actual mischief in such dark colours as the Protest employs.

I have been for many years both teacher and examiner; and I had, as a young student, to undergo the ordeal of the college examinations for class Prizes, Scholarships, and the Degree, as practised in the University of Aberdeen half a

1 Criticism of a Protest issued by Mr. Auberon Herbert in 1888, and signed by many leading educationists, " against the dangerous mental pressure and misdirection of energies that are to be found in nearly all parts of our present Educational System". The substance of the Protest was "the Sacrifice of Education to Examination".

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century ago. It so happened that, a little before my time, the Degree examinations in our University had been converted from a farce to a serious test of merit. The candidates had to undergo examination on seven subjects (Latin, Greek, Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, Natural History, Moral Philosophy, Evidences of Christianity) on as many successive days. The novelty of the proceeding put the system of examination itself on its trial, and revealed both its weak and its strong points, just as they are known at the present day. The first weakness was the hasty cram at the last minute, instead of the deliberate appropriation of all the subjects from day to day. Of course, this was followed by an equally hasty forgetfulness of a portion of the knowledge producible on examination day. The second weakness was the saving of laborious preparation by ingeniously circumventing the examiners, through a close study of their habits and proclivities.

So thoroughly typical and representative are these two defects, that, in stating my conclusions regarding them, I cover a large part of the debatable ground that we are now engaged upon. To put the matter as shortly as possible, I will take the last-mentioned first, because it partly embraces the other. If I were asked, then, how I behaved under my seven examiners, with a view to the best result at the least cost, I must say that, as regards four, if not five, out of the seven, there was but one road to success, namely, to master equally the whole course of teaching in each class. So well selected were the questions sure to be, that no safe calculation could. be made as to what would probably be given, or what would probably be omitted on the occasion. With the two remaining subjects, I grant that some amount of dodging was possible, and, of course, we all dodged accordingly.

Next, as regards the hasty preparation at the end. With a course of 150 lectures, and with no clue to omissions, a few days' cram at the end was quite unavailing. To pass a high examination, under a competent examiner, the knowledge must be sufficiently engrained to survive the examination, and, indeed, to last one's life, should there be occasion for reverting

to it. Of course, there is such a thing as a scrape pass, which does not survive; but so worthless is it there and then, that its persistence does not much signify. Whoever can obtain a good mediocrity position, with a proper examiner, will, in my opinion, keep a hold of the subject for a considerable time after; although, naturally, in the case of total disuse, it must in the long run decline, if not entirely perish.

As regards Aberdeen University, now (1889) attended by upwards of nine hundred students, I am not aware of there being any examination that could be dispensed with, or materially shortened. We have still defects in our curriculum, but taking it as it stands, the examinations that accompany the teaching, and otherwise, are absolutely necessary to do justice to the students. There is no complaint as to injury to their health. The instances of a break-down in bodily constitution are chiefly confined to those very ambitious youths who carve out a future for themselves by means of University distinctions alone. To come up prepared at the entrance for gaining a valuable bursary, such as to cover fees and maintenance for four years; to carry off the valuable money prizes offered at graduation; to obtain the still more valuable scholarships subsequent to the degree; to add to these a Ferguson Scholarship, where candidates have to be encountered from the three other Universities; to obtain a scholarship in Cambridge, in addition, so as to secure a three years' maintenance there; to become eventually a first or second wrangler—while, in the majority of cases, all this is gone through, without serious detriment to health, there are some that utterly break down, and even die of the long-continued strain. There is no legislative remedy for such a fatality. It may be bewailed, in the fine language of Adam Smith's celebrated passage on "the poor man's son whom Heaven, in the hour of her anger, has smitten with ambition," but it cannot be met by any change of system on our part. Whoever ventures on such an enterprise should first have the assurance of possessing both physical and mental endowments of the very first quality.

I believe that a similar strain of remarks would apply to the other Scottish Universities. I am not prepared to speak