Marks and Examinations.
by J. S. Mills, M.A.
Volume 2, 1891/92, pgs. 926-930
The system of assessing by marks has become so associated with all school teaching and discipline that the efficient working of a school without it can be scarcely imagined. At the same time there is hardly any point at which our public school system is more open to attack. Any expression of scepticism as to the necessity or desirability of marks is met by the answer that boys require a perpetual stimulus to work, and parents reliable information of their boys' progress and positions. This is the question, then, I wish to briefly discuss.
In the first place, I can conceive no possibility of modifying or improving our marking system. The more scientific and reliable it is made, the more difficult it is to work, and the more urgent a case we have against it. The writer has had experience of many systems, among others of one so perfect and scientific that the mere teaching of a class became quite a secondary consideration, the teacher's chief attention being devoted to the faithful application of the scheme and to admiration of its ingenuity. The handiest and perhaps the worst system is that by which at the termination of a lesson the lowest boy in a class, say, of twenty receives one mark, and the top boy twenty. The best way, perhaps, in spite of the difficulty of equalising the questions, is to assign one mark to each answer. One advantage of this system is that it avoids the confusion of a perpetual changing of seats. All systems, however, fair or unfair, scientific or unscientific, are open to many common objections. They all involve an additional burden and responsibility to a master who has, or ought to have, his hands sufficiently full with discipline and teaching of his form. In the case of a modern language master with large forms and a whole school under his tuition, marking often exacts an immense expenditure of time. The supervision of the marks in each class, the subsequent work of addition and proportionalising, are such an additional tax on his energies as needs some justification in practical utility. But, we are told, boys must have some perpetual stimulus, some constant reminder and reward. As a teacher of some experience, I feel no keen indignation at this pessimistic view of a boy's interest and motive in his work. Boys are not distinguished for a love of learning for its own sake, and are certainly not averse to a bribe. But I wish to insist that in the marking system we are pandering unnecessarily to this fundamental aversion to education, and are perhaps fostering it. I am perpetually asked, "What was the use of doing this, if we are not to be marked for it?" Only the other day a colleague told me an amusing incident of this kind. He was in the middle of what he considered an interesting and valuable dissertation on the difference between the meanings of quel que and quelque, when he was suddenly interrupted by the delightfully irrelevant inquiry, "Please, sir, what is your system of marking in French composition?" The vicious motive revealed by such a question is, of course, very obvious to us; but I think it does represent a real damage constantly inflicted upon the spirit and interest of school-work. But, apart from the perpetual suggestion of a wrong motive, I have some doubt of the advantage of these recurring form-lists based upon marks. I am not sure that a boy who is at the top of his form, it may be from natural sharpness, should always be confronted with the visible proclamation of his superiority; and I am sure that many an industrious boy whose work contains more moral merit than that of a far less industrious but naturally sharper boy, suffers a good deal of needless discouragement by always seeing his name in the inglorious fag-end of an order of merit. Marks are given for actual performance oral and written, with no reference to the amount of determination and industry with which the work has been achieved.
But this insistance upon marks as the inevitable accompaniment of teaching has also a cramping and narrowing influence upon the teacher himself, as it impels him to such subjects and such treatment of subjects of school study only as can be assessed by marks and examinations. The prejudice accounts to some extent for the fewness of the hours devoted to the reading of history or literature in forms without any reference to future catechism but with the simple object of widening and refining the mind and familiarising it with the classical works of our own language. It also accounts for that flood of over-annotated editions; that "poor ha'porth" of Scott or Shakespeare, "with the intolerable deal" of introduction and notes that laborious and ponderous treatment of English poetry which might be left for its appreciation and understanding to the sympathies of young English hearts. But how convenient those notes are for home-work, for sharp-shooting of question and answer in form! And, above all, what beautiful examination-papers they make! And yet I am sure they are to some extent responsible for the fact that, like Lord Harvey in Pope's satire, many of us "hate whate'er we read at school."
I have, then, a serious indictment against the marking system in its constant suggestion to boys of a mercenary motive, the perpetual accentuation of the differences between boys' natural aptitudes, the immense expenditure of time it involves, and in its cramping and narrowing influence upon the actual spirit and method of teaching.
The case of examinations, however, seems to me to stand upon quite a different footing. I can, of course, appreciate the objections to an unenlightened and over-specialised examination, to such a paper of questions as I once saw on "Hamlet," which seemed to have been set with the object so well described as that of "displaying the erudition of the examiner" rather than with any desire to elicit from the examined some proof of a general and fruitful appreciation of the play. Such a paper, of course, no teacher of any capacity--I almost said of any sense of humour--would ever think of setting. But I cannot understand the strong current of feeling which seems to have started against examinations in general. Far from agreeing with such an attitude, I am convinced that the use of examination on enlightened principles should be rather extended than discouraged, and do away to some extent with the necessity of continuous "marking." An examination once a fortnight, fairly representative of the fortnight's work in the various subjects, and set with a view rather to ascertain the amount of progress made than to the production of an "order of merit," would, I am sure, be quite sufficient check upon idleness and stagnation, and I think a sufficient stimulus to industry. Examinations, of course, need a reform in many ways. I will do no more than allude to one direction in which I think reform might proceed. It is customary in many schools to concentrate especial attention with a view to a distant examination upon a carefully restricted amount of translation, classical or modern--to work the passage up to a very high perfection in every detail. This course seems to me, especially in modern languages, a mistake. Two pages of German prose read carefully are better for purposes of facility in translation than one page prepared with the special concentration I have mentioned. And the examination, it seems to me, should take the form rather of a piece of "sight-translation" representing the average difficult of the prepared work. The test is, in this case, applied to progress in powers of translation and not to a knowledge, which may be crammed, of a prescribed passage. These criticisms are, of course, inapplicable to forms of very young boys, who have to be dealt with on distinct and different methods. But in the case of all other forms, and generally in literary examinations of all kinds, facility in translation should always be tested rather than ability to translate from books specially set.
With many necessary reforms, then, I maintain that examinations may be used as a practical and sufficient substitute for the pernicious system of marking. I am for the entire abolition of marks in the interests both of teacher and taught. Surely as the science of education advances, as knowledge is made easier and more attractive, and (shall I add?) as a system of registration ensures the intellectual and spiritual qualifications of teachers, the necessity for these artificial incentives will disappear. And may we not claim to have made already sufficient progress in most of these directions to justify us in now casting aside "marks" as a cumbrous and obsolete part of our scholastic machinery?
Typed by Blossom Barden, Oct. 2013; Proofread by LNL, Oct. 2023