IS IT FAIR?

IT becomes a difficult and momentous question, some weeks before the "Mid-year Examinations," which part of our back work in each study is the most important and useful, and what we had better "get up" for the examination. It seems as if our common sense should tell us, in answer to this question, that it is best to make a complete review of the subject, and to master thoroughly a digest of the most important parts, and of those to which the most attention has been directed, giving an undue prominence to no single feature of the course.

But the true answer rests greatly upon the view that is taken of the true purpose of examinations. If an examination is regarded as a pitched battle between the instructor and the student, in which the former attempts to floor his adversary and the latter tries to escape being floored, we must expect the instructor to make use of Napoleonic tactics, and concentrate his forces on a single point, - this being, doubtless, the best method of attack, - and we should mass our strength on the point we expect to be attacked, thus leaving our whole domain open to the incursions of random, guerilla-like questions. But if the movement of the enemy is merely a feint, we are liable to be utterly conquered by his victorious march through a country only defended by its ordinary militia. It is this danger which makes most students averse to the plan of learning thoroughly any particular part of a course to the exclusion of the rest.

But is this method of examination a fair test of the ability and knowledge of a student? Though a naturalist may be able to construct the whole mastodon, given the jaw-bone, it is respectfully submitted that it is impossible to acquire a correct conception of a student's knowledge of a wide subject, from the minuteness of his knowledge in one of the minor details.

It seems to me that the true object of an examination is to find the student's proficiency in the subject as a whole; and that an examination-paper is not a good one, because it brings the average mark obtained on it below fifty per cent, but only when it covers nearly all the most important parts of the course, and is a fair test of the student's knowledge. Finally, to return to the former metaphor, a general would scarcely mass his forces on a point which is not even in the country he is defending; nor can a student imagine that he should prepare himself thoroughly and exclusively on a subject which is not even mentioned, as belonging to the course, in the College Catalogue.