This is an ambitious book, dealing with an issue which deserves much greater attention from historians than it has received heretofore. Only the work of John Roach comes to mind as a precursor, dealing with precisely the same period. And that was published as long ago as 1971. So a contemporary re-examination of the rise of examinations in Victorian Britain is to be welcomed.
James Elwick’s introduction is complex, thoughtful and thought-provoking, raising a range of issues to be pursued in the book. Having briefly justified his focus on Nineteenth Century Britain, identifying it as the period during which (and the place where) the examination in its modern form emerged, he argues that the development of examinations established not only ‘norms’ but also ‘expectations’, and stresses the need to look at the responses to examinations as well as their construction and purposes. The introduction promises a focus on intentions and outcomes, on the evolving concept of ‘merit’ and on the use of statistics to justify results or findings. Two key responses, cramming and cheating, are highlighted before going on to raise several big historical questions. What can examinations tell us about the history of science? What part did examinations play in creating greater mass understanding of and participation in science? How did the ‘men of science’ make a living? How did a scientific priesthood emerge? And how did the standardisation of exams imprison some and emancipate others? These are big questions and this is an ambitious book.
In the chapters which follow, Elwick goes on to develop and explore these themes. First, he outlines the surprising number of organizations which deployed examinations, in many cases being set up to administer them. Next, he demonstrates how examinations were monetarised through the development of payment by results. He shows how, in the name of reducing waste and imposing uniformity, the mid-Nineteenth Century modernisation of government saw this extended well beyond the elementary school. The centrality of figures such as Henry Cole, Lyon Playfair and Robert Lowe to this process is carefully documented.
There follows a meticulous and fascinating reconstruction of the 1873 summer examination set by the Department of Science and Art in Animal Physiology, focused on the role of the chief examiner, T.H. Huxley and the paper of one student in particular, Charles Ledger, who, had he passed, would have earned money for his tutor at St. John’s Woking, Robert Goffin. This unique insight into the detailed workings of one of these examinations makes the book a significant contribution to scholarship.
Next, the book deals with the vexed issues of standardization, quantification and the tabulation of results, showing that the novel methods of funding the Revised Code in the elementary sector had a mixed impact, narrowing the curriculum but, at the same time, forcing teachers to focus on children they might otherwise have neglected. This section of the book concludes with an account of the rise of external examinations, focusing particularly on the University of London’s adoption of external matriculation in 1858 and on the public perceptions of examination results which were increasingly advertised in the press.
The book concludes with two chapters, one on cramming and cheating, focusing particularly on the case of Robert Goffin, who appears to have spent several years gaming the DSA examinations to ensure his pupils’ success, and a second on the way in which credentalism resulted before the end of the Nineteenth Century in the success of many who were prejudged to be among those who could never qualify for elite education, girls in particular.
In brief, this is a book which is committed, from the outset, to the reconstruction and analysis of numerous aspects of the rise of examinations. It involves some excellent detailed recovery of individual cases from a range of archives, and the author is to be congratulated on his nose for a good source. It leads to some fascinating reconstructions. Set against this is the fact that this research strategy does not lead to a structured narrative, although the earlier chapters do offer a necessary overview. It is a thought-provoking work which deserves to be consulted by all who have an interest in the conflicted legacy and the enduring impact of examination systems which persist to this day and which originated in the Nineteenth Century. Ultimately, my reading of this text leads me to judge it as being ambiguous on the overriding question. Have examinations been a boon or a curse? The answer I take from this book is that they are, and have always been, both. It deserves to be widely read.