ons for the public service, of which
I have laid before the Section a brief history compiled from the
Reports, is one of those radical innovations that may ultimately lead to
great consequences. For the present, however, it leads to many debates.
Not merely does the working out of the scheme involve conflicting views,
but there is still, in many quarters, great hesitation as to whether the
innovation is to be productive of good or of evil. The Report of the
Playfair Commission, and the more recent Report relative to the changes
in the India Civil Service Regulations, indicate pretty broadly the
doubts that still cleave to many minds on the whole question. It is
enough to refer to the views of Sir Arthur Helps, W.R. Greg, and Dr.
Farr, expressed to the Playfair Commission, as decidedly adverse to the
competitive system. The authorities cited in the Report on the India
Examinations scarcely go the length of total condemnation; but many
acquiesce only because there is no hope of a reversal.

The question of the expediency of the system as a whole is not well
suited to a sectional discussion. We shall be much better employed in
adverting to some of those details in the conduct of the examinations
that have a bearing on the general education of the country, as well as
on the Civil Service itself. It was very well for the Commissioners, at
first starting, to be guided, in their choice of subjects and in their
assigning of values to those subjects, by the received branches of
education in the schools and colleges. But, sooner or later, these
subjects must be discussed on their intrinsic merits for the ends in
view. Indeed, the scheme of Lord Salisbury has already made the venture
that Macaulay declined to make; it has absolutely excluded some of the
best recognised subjects of our school and college teaching, instead of
leaving them to the option of the candidates.

I will occupy the present paper with the consideration of two
departments in the examination programme--the one relating to the
PHYSICAL or NATURAL SCIENCES, the other relating to LANGUAGES.

* * * * *

[COMMISSIONER' SCHEME OF SCIENCE.]

The Commissioners' scheme of Mathematics and Natural Science is not, in
my opinion, accordant either with the best views of the relations of the
sciences, or with the best teaching usages.

In the classification of the Sciences, the first and most important
distinction is between the fundamenta