.II. Madras. I am glad to find that the subject is treated in the text-book used at the college in accordance with the theory of limits now generally approved of, instead of by the Algebraic method. The students are more fortunate than the cadets at Addiscombe, who still study the latter method. P. O'Connell, Madras, 17 January 1857. (signed) Lieutenant Engineers. From the Acting Head Master of the Provincial School at Combaconum to A. J. Arbuthnot, Sir, I HAVE the honour to forward you the college examination papers, with a note of the marks assigned to each. The care which I have given the due apportionment of the latter will render unnecessary any other notice of the relative merits of the students; I will only add, that while all show some acquaintance with the subjects under review, the best papers in my opinion are highly creditable both to the writers and to the institution in which they have pursued their studies. (signed) Edwin Charles Caldwell, Acting Head Master. From E. Thompson, Esq., M.A., to A. J. Arbuthnot, Esq., Director of Public Instruction, Sir, Madras, dated Calicut, 19 February 1857. IN accordance with your request I have carefully examined the answers of the students of the Presidency College to the questions proposed by myself, and have now the honour to return them to you, with tabular statements of the marks obtained in each paper. 2. The marks of course speak for themselves with regard to the relative merits of the pupils, and therefore I need only briefly refer to them as individuals. You will perceive that in all the five papers proposed to the third class the highest number of marks has been *V. Rajahgopaul. obtained by the same student. Though not manifesting any very decided superiority in each particular subject, there can be no doubt that he is, on the whole, the best acquainted both with the English language and modern history. In the second class, one student is in a more decided manner superior to his competitors, his papers being geuerally sensible and accurate, though there is great room for improvement in his English style. 3. On the whole, I cannot consider the result satisfactory. Since the arrival of the yearly report on education for 1855-56, and my perusal of the papers on history in the appendix, I am aware that my questions are somewhat more difficult than those of the previous year, but I still consider that they are such as ought to be well answered by any student of ordinary ability who has paid serious attention to the subjects said to have been read. You will perceive that in six papers out of nine the most successful student has not obtained half n.arks, and in the three remaining papers that proportion has been only very slightly exceeded. 4. In the senior class the most serious short-comings are in the paper on Milton. The general paper in English literature, and the general paper in modern history. In the two two former, you will see the best student omitted altogether, several of the questions. I infer from my own written questions having been returned to me, that the papers were not printed before the examination but dictated to the students at the time. If the time so employed was deducted from the three hours assigned to each paper, the students would be at a great disadvantage in these two papers, as they were necessarily long on account of the paraphrases. In the general paper on modern history no such excuse can be admitted, and I must confess that I am much disappointed with the general execution of that paper. Í was surprised to find that no student could explain the meaning of pragmatic sanction or adduce any example of its use besides the well known instance of the Austrian succession; surely when reading that portion of history their attention must have been called to the real meaning of the term. I was better pleased with the answers of the students of this class in the papers on Trench's lectures and Guizot's Civilisation, they express themselves well on the whole; and the orthography and grammar are quite as good as can reasonably be expected from Hindoo youths in the hurry of examination. I 5. The students of the second class have not satisfied me in the papers on Taylor's modern history. If they had really studied the small portion of this work selected for examination, they must have succeeded in obtaining more marks. I do not quite understand on what principle certain chapters have been omitted, in a condensed work of this kind nearly every paragraph is of importance, and such a system of omission appears to me likely to give them a very disjointed and fragmentary view of the modern history of Europe. In the general paper also, with the exception of the student to whom I have already referred, there is no one whose answers I can praise; these students must all exert themselves to reach the level of the senior class. 6. On the papers of the first class I have not much to remark; of course errors in grammar and orthography are more frequent here than in the other classes, but I do not think that on the whole the students in this class are much inferior to the class immediately above them. 7. Though I have been obliged to state that I do not consider the result satisfactory, I am quite aware that every allowance should be made both on account of the number of subjects to which the attention of the students is directed, and the recent introduction of general papers. Their style of composition with but few exceptions, indicates that they have acquired a very considerable familiarity with the English language, and I hope that as the junior students advance and become more accustomed to such examinations, the tabular statements of the examiners will exhibit a more satisfactory result. 8. I ought to mention that in my tabular statements the mark (-) indicates that the student has altogether omitted the question, while the cipher implies that the question has been attempted but that the answer has not deserved any marks. 9. The papers have been this day despatched per banghy. II. Madras. II. Madras. From W. Holloway, Esq., to A. J. Arbuthnot, Esq., Director of Public Instruction; dated Calicut, 19 February 1857, No. 31. Sir, I HAVE the honour to forward my arithmetical estimate of so much of the Madras Presidency College examination as I have conducted, at your request. I regret to state that the answers in Moral Philosophy are without exception remarkable for want of appreciation of notions at the base of the science of ethics. They contain a strange mixture of truth and of errors of the most ludicrous character. Such knowledge can neither familiarise the minds of the students with modes of reasoning which alone enter into the affairs of life, nor imbue them with a habit of accurately expressing abstract notions. The moral sciences, when properly studied, answer both these ends; but I fear that no single student has here exercised any other faculty than the memory, and so studied; these sciences are unquestionably open to the reproach which the votaries of mathematics lavish upon them. They merely provide materials for vague and inconclusive talk. 3. In the kindred subject of Political Economy, I am unable to speak more favourably. No real knowledge of the subject matter has been obtained. The slightest departure of the question from the language and order of the text book, suffices to elicit the strangest collection of crude notions and economical fallacies. A definition will be given in the language of the book, and the answer to a question requiring the simplest deduction, will deliver a doctrine, not only not derived from that definition, but in direct opposition to it. Every one defines capital with more or less accuracy, because Mrs. Marcet has defined it, but a glance over these answers will show that not a glimmering of the real import of that definition has been acquired. The same may be said of the doctrine of values. A mathematician would attach no worth to the answer of a youth who demonstrated a simple rider by misstating the properties of a circle. The papers set ought to have been answered by any youth who had obtained a mastery of the principles of the subject. I freely admit, however, that it is much more difficult than the one printed in your recent report. There the questions are all leading questions, generally containing some catch word, and can be answered from memory alone. Looking at the style of the answers, it strikes me that these youths have been encouraged to learn pages of the treatise by heart, and have not been taught by intelligent illustration to trace the doctrines to their application. Unless the moral sciences are taught scientifically they should not be taught at all. The memory will be better exercised on words more intrinsically beautiful than those of treatises on political economy. I regret that I am compelled to speak so unfavourably, but it is quite clear that the interests of education, as well as those of the institution, require glaring defects to be distinctly exposed. I deem this more particularly necessary with respect to subjects in themselves so important as the moral sciences, and in which it is so easy for the mind to be deluded by the possession of a few vague generalities of expression into the idea that substantial knowledge has been acquired. (signed) W. Holloway. |