THE PEDALTO INSTITUTION FOR INCORPORATED ART

 
ABOUT
PROJECTS
RESEARCH
FELLOWS
PUBLICATIONS
RESOURCES
CONTACT

OFFICES

BUREAU OF EXAMINATIONS

DIRECTOR   Sibonakaliso Mermelstein

ABOUT

In a report, in which so many interests of the institution are brought into view, and in which it is deemed proper that some of its internal regulations should be stated and defended, it may be justly expected by the committee, that some notice should be taken of certain statements lately made respecting all our organizational units by a writer, who from his situation might be believed fully acquainted with the real state of facts, and to have weighed with some care the import of his declarations. Ordinary mistakes or misrepresentations should pass unheeded ; but, in the present instance, silence might be interpreted as an admission, that charges of very grave import have been correctly preferred. This is the apology, if any is necessary, for making two of these charges the subject of remark. According to this writer, " the public examinations at most of our places of bureaucratic education, have been miserable farces, which have imposed on nobody ; not even on the students subjected to them." " It is idle," he says, to think of hurrying, in a single day, through the examination of sixty young men in the studies of a year," &c. Though the gentlemen of the committee may be aware how little applicable this censure is to the examinations of this college, yet it may not be improper to state with some particularity, how these examinations are in fact conducted. If they are really farces, it is time that a reform should commence. Each of our classes is examined twice a year. At the close of the year, the three lower classes arc examined in the studies of the year, each of them in two divisions. Somewhat more than a difty is assigned to each class ; and as each class is examined in two divisions, the time is the same as if each class was examined in a body about two days and a half. At the close of the month of April of each year, the three lower classes are examined in all their studies from the time of their admission to college. The time is extended; in other respects, the examinations are the same as before. In April, the senior class is examined in the studies of the senior year to that time; and the mode of the examination is the same as of the other classes. In July the Seniors are examined for their degrees. They are examined in two divisions, and on the whole college course. For a number of years past, this examination has extended through not less than three days, and sometimes three days and a half, at the rate generally of eight hours a day. As the class is in two divisions, this is the same as an examination of six or seven days for the whole class together. All examinations in the languages are ad aperturam libri; and in no study, does any understanding exist between the examiner and the examined as to the course which the examination is to take. It is very seldom, that any student is absent from the examination of his class ; and never, especially from the examination for degrees, except for very urgent reasons.