Individual Examinations in Elementary Schools

Abstract

THE system of elementary education in vogue in England from 18134 to JL 1895 was based on the principle of payment by results. Once a year the children were individually examined by Her 1fajesty's Inspectors of Schools, and the amount of Government grant apportioned to each school depended on the accuracy with which its pupils could reproduce the knowledge they had imbibed during the preceding twelve months. All children from five years old np to twelve or thirteen were examined, and were then obliged, as a rule, to be promoted to the next higher standard. Every attempt to secure. exemption from examination, on the plea of ill-health, irregular attendance, or natural dulness was rigidly scrutinised, and anything above a small percentage of exemptions resulted in loss nf income to the school, and of reputation to the teacher. As public money was being distributed over a wide area, it was inevitable that an attempt should be made to establish uniformity of standard throughout the country, and thus the ill-fed and irregular children from the slums were subjected to the same ordeal, and expected to reach the same level of accuracy, in all subjects, as children from good homes. It was apparently assumed that all children of the same age possessed the same natural endowments, and had reached the same stage of mental development. The results thus obtained were, of necessity, premature results born out of due time, and could not be secured by truly educational methocls, which recognise the gradual growth of the child mind, but only by the tricks and short cuts of the crammer. The system was, however, useful in the compilation of blue boola ; and statistics of passes and failures afforded a rough and ready method of estimating a small portion of the work done in school. Although the system was abolished in 1895, by the pressure of enlightened educational opinion, some large school boards retained the plan of having the children in their schools examined individually, at least once a year, by their own inspectors. A recent report