Some account of the origin and objects of the new Oxford examinations for the title of Associate in Arts and certificates, for the year 1858 / by T.D. Acland ; also letters from J. Hullah [and others] and selected papers relating to the West of England examination.
- Acland, Sir Thomas Dyke, 1809-1898.
- Date:
- 1858
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Some account of the origin and objects of the new Oxford examinations for the title of Associate in Arts and certificates, for the year 1858 / by T.D. Acland ; also letters from J. Hullah [and others] and selected papers relating to the West of England examination. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![students as an equivalent or substitute for that orderly and methodical arrangement of ideas which it is the peculiar province of an University to foster and to test. It may, however, be reasonably expected that the proposed examinations will tend to feed the Universities wdth able men rather than to diminish the number of residents, because youths likely to justify the expense of University Education are more certain not to escape notice. We maybe quite sure also that there are many liberal-minded and benevolent persons throughout the country who would gladly contribute to the cause of sound education by helping to maintain promising youths at the Universities if they were able to rely upon such a test, as the ])roposed examinations would afford, of the probability that their bounty would not be misapplied. Those who distinguish themselves in the Associate Examinations will often be drawn from a class of persons wdio liave chiefly their own talents and industry to depend on. They will therefore be likely to succeed in open competition, and to- identify themselves and their talents with the interests of the University in their future career. And this is no unimportant consideration when so many influences are operating in a contrary direction. But, in fact, the objections under consideration refer not so much to the substance of the Oxford plan for improving the education of the Middle Classes, as to the Title it offers. If a precedent be demanded for giving a title to youths, it is sufficient to call to mind the age at which, in former days, the title of Bachelor of Arts was conferred. With regard to the suit- ableness of the particular term proposed, let us first look at the facts. The University will have to set its mark on two distinct kinds of education. It will confine, as heretofore, all academical privileges to the finished education of English gentlemen, members of its own corporation, to whom it stands in relation of Alma Mater. Between itself and those outside its doors, who are not incorporated but aggregated, it proposes to establish the relation of a Clientela. In the second class, as well as in the first, will be found persons admitted to the society of gentlemen ; both will](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22440392_0026.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
