Besides putting forward this plea for the higher studies even
when not likely to be professionally useful, Mr. Gladstone insisted with some significance on the inadequate use made of the noble edu- cational endowments of our secondary schools and Universities, endowments which he suspected were equal in amount to all those of the Continent of Europe taken together. The " beggarly return not of empty, but of ill-filled boxes," which is the response to these enormous endowments, had sown widely a profound scepticism respecting the value of learning and culture. Mr. Gladstone did not, however, depreciate, but strongly praised the examination-system, as adding something of its own, besides the knowledge that it tested :—" What a pitched battle is to the com- mander of an army, that a strong examination is to an earnest student. All his faculties, all his attainments, must be on the alert, and wait the word of command ; method is tested at the same time as strength ; and over the whole movement, presence of mind must preside." No doubt. Force of character is tested by an examination almost as much aa intellect,—for instance, the power of concentrating various quite distinct streams of thought and knowledge on a single point is of the first importance in an examination, and requires not merely presence of mind, but a certain faculty of skilful intellectual grouping which is of the first value to practical men.
