The sacrifice of education / by Sir Joseph Fayrer.

  • Fayrer, Joseph, Sir, 1824-1907.
Date:
[1889]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The sacrifice of education / by Sir Joseph Fayrer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    rational faculties and moulding the intellectual powers into the form which will render them most fitted for the duties and emer- gencies of life; that moreover they tend to interfere with sound teaching, by imposing on the teacher the necessity of following some method other than that he might have deemed most appropriate, because he is aware that he could not thus ensure the best chance, not of advancing the intellectual growth of his pupil, but of success- fully passing him through a certain examination. Further, I believe that the continual mental strain to which children and young persons are exposed has an injurious effect on health; for it is impossible to overwork the nervous system whilst the frame is still growing, without prejudice to one or the other, if not both, and there is good reason for believing that mental over- strain and cerebral irritation are not unfrequent results of the system of pressure which now obtains in some schools: my own experience, indeed, furnishes me with evidence that it is so. That the education and training of childhood and youth in these days is in advance of, and an improvement on, that of the past, in many and perhaps most, respects, cannot be doubted; but that it is defective in the direction above referred to I believe is equally certain ; and I am glad to think that the time may be at hand when some healthful modification of it will take place. As regards the education and examination of young men, experi- ence of more than a quarter of a century, during the greater part of which time I have been teacher or examiner, and for the last eight years have taken part in the competitive examinations for the Navy, Army, and Indian Medical Services, has given me an opportunity of forming an opinion on the question as it relates to these depart- ments of the public service, and has also enabled me to arrive at the conclusion that, though examination carefully conducted is indispen- sable, the inordinate practice and imposition of it is deleterious, demanding, as it does, incessant mental labour, and so preoccupying the attention and burdening the memory as to leave little time for real thought, digestion, or assimilation of the subject-matter on which real culture and knowledge of the work to be accomplished depend, whilst practical work is, as a matter of course, narrowed to the most contracted limits, and the vast jumble of information, which has been arranged in a certain form, sufficient to satisfy the examiner, is thank- fully laid aside or forgotten as soon as the ordeal is past. I think too much is expected. It is impossible that in four, five, or even six years the enormous amount of knowledge required by the medical graduate of the present day can be assimilated, or that he can really work up to that which it is supposed to represent. I venture to think that longer study of certain subjects, less cramming, and fewer examinations might advantageously be substituted for the system which now prevails. As for the examinations which are