38 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM

carefully dispensed and given in small doses it acts as an
excellent stimulant, but given in excess it is an active
poison, and becomes a narcotic to the mental system.
The condition of each patient should be carefully diagnosed
 ; the medicine should not be taken out of one blue
bottle, but prescriptions should vary according to the
diagnosis. Instead of the present universal system of
definite compulsory subjects for all candidates in examinations
 a much freer choice should be possible: not *‘ uncontrolled
 options” indeed, any more than a free choice
of drugs by the patient. American education has shown
us the failure of that system, but some principle of compensating
 groups in which a high standard in certain
subjects will compensate for a low standard in others.
Again, patients are prescribed for by doctors who have
not diagnosed the case, and unfortunately, in addition to
this, the same patient is attended by many doctors all
acting without knowledge of the conditions, and usually
without consultation with each other. The moral is obvious—reduce
 thenumber of examining boards: if possible
let examining powers be vested in a single authority, and
insist that this specialist shall not prescribe without consulting
 the local doctor who has had charge of the case,
and who is represented in this simile by the public or
preparatory schoolmaster himself.
Under the present system it is not to be wondered at
that progress is so slow, but rather that so many patients
survive at all.
The general principle at present in force is the influencing
 of curricula by means of examination syllabuses,
compiled by those who have no intimate knowledge of
the conditions and difficulties of the lower rungs of the
educational ladder. Preparatory schools, for example,
should themselves settle the type of education they consider
 most suited to the boys they teach. Consultation
and co-operation with public school head masters is both