70
(Quoted in Roach 1971: 31)
Gladstone did not share with his monarch the less than democratic views that he had
expressed to Lord John RusselI a few days earlier in 1854:
I do not hesitate to say that one of the great recommendations of the change [to
open competition] in my eyes would be its tendency to strengthen and multiply
the ties between the higher class and the possession of administrative power....
I have a strong impression that the aristocracy of this country are even superior
in natural gifts, on the average, to the mass.... This applies in its degree to all
those who may be called gentlemen by birth and training.
(QuotedinRoach 1971: 193)
Despite his strong support for selection by examination, it was not until 1870 that
Gladstone managed to introduce open competition by examination to the English civil
service. Yet the fact that the issue of examinations was a matter of keen public debate
by the great men of the day enhanced the possibility of introducing the idea at an
earlier stage of education:
Just as the administrative reformers saw public examination as a remedy for
political corruption and a test of personal competence, so the educational
reformers saw it as a remedy against local pressures on the teacher and as a
means of raising professional standards.
(Roach 1971: 55)
It was progressive educationists concerned about the above-mentioned middle-class
schools who were to succeed in introducing examinations as a means of what would
now be termed ‘quality assurance’; their selection function, which has become their
overriding purpose, was not initially the major objective.
A brief snapshot of mid-Victorian secondary education reveals the causes of concern
over the middle tranche of what provision there was. The upper classes felt
themselves to be well served by the public schools which could educate their
(younger) sons to proceed to the ancient universities of Oxford or Cambridge. This
powerful group therefore had no reason to seek change. The emerging middle class
aspired to an upper-class education in a public school for their offspring should their
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