68 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM

others he is either in advance of the stage reached by the
public school form, in which case he simply marks time
and incidentally learns to be idle, or else he is below that
standard, in which case he is attempting to acquire knowledge
 in a subject in which he has not been sufficiently
well grounded.
Seeing that either one or other of these disadvantages
must occur in the majority of subjects with frequently
permanent ill effects, the extremely serious nature of this
defect becomes obvious.
A similar gap occurs in the transition from public
school to university education, but since this is a defect to
be adjusted by the university authorities rather than by
the public schools there is no occasion to discuss it in
detail.
6. The Examination System and Teaching to Syllabus.—
Some of the deadly tentacles of the examination octopus
have already been noted. The multiplicity of examinations,
 the variety of syllabuses, and the fact that most
schools depend to a large extent on examination results
for their reputation, tend to make the whole system
adopted one of mere cram, the teacher is so ‘“cabin’d,
cribb’d, and confined” that freedom of development on
true educational lines becomes quite impossible.
7. Methods of Teaching.—1t is impossible to deal with
a criticism of methods of teaching in a brief résumé of
this nature. The outstanding features which cry aloud
for readjustment, are the variety of systems upon which
modern languages are taught even in a single school, the
present haphazard methods of teaching English, the nonrealization
 of the importance of scientific method in all
branches of education, the lack of co-operation and correlation,
 especially between science and mathematics, and
the teaching of science itself upon too narrow a basis.
8. Opportunities of Self-Realization.— The methods at
present in vogue tend to treat a boy as a mere machine,