Pidgins and Creoles

…In West Africa, English takes two forms: the language received in England, more or less modified, and English-based pidgins and creoles. The American linguist, Robert Hall, makes a distinction between "pidgins" used by members of different speech groups to communicate with each other, and the "creoles" which arise "when a pidgin becomes the native language of a speech community." By this definition creoles are languages; whether pidgins are is a matter for debate. Once, linguists used to despise pidgins, and creoles as debased. Now they take them seriously, realising that all languages are to some extent creolised (English very obviously).

The historical evolution of these pidgins and creoles remains uncertain. It has been suggested that they all derive from sabir, the lingua franca of the medieval Mediterranean, which was spread to Africa by the Portuguese. But Spencer thinks that several distinct pidgins {Portuguese, French and English) grew up separately in West

Africa. English he points out, was being spoken there by Englishmen (and a variety of English by their interpreters) as early as the 16^th century. By the 17th century many Englishmen were settled there. But it would be wrong to assume that, because they were trading in slaves, they spoke merely a "trade pidgin". Buying slaves can only have taken up a small part of slave trader's day. Most of his time must have been spent in company and intimacy with his African wives, friends and associates. What he spoke will have contained far more than just trade terms.

Out of this "West Coast English" (call it pidgin or creole) grew the most widespread of the West Africa creoles - Sierra Leone Krio - enriched by many other components, including creoles of North America and the West Indies, and African language, principally Yoruba. Eldred Jones, himself a native Krio speaker, and head of the English department at the University of Sierra Leone, gives a brief comprehensive survey of this magnificently flexible language, rich in expressive idioms and neologisms, which even a professor of English Literature, can love, and prefer in conversation to English. Long derided and scorned, Krio has survived triumphantly for over a century. Today it is more spoken than ever before - indeed, it has become the lingua franca of …

(From: John Spencer: The English in West Africa, Longman Publishers)

The Origins of Satire

The emergence of satire, if not as a formal genre, then at least as a distinct type of literature, is probably very ancient. It can apparently be found in the literature of the primitive peoples whose words have been recorded and who may be thought to have preserved the most ancient traditions of mankind. It is striking that two of these literary traditions appear in the special combination of realism and fantasy which, is the keynote of true satire. One is the 'lampoon' or personal attack; the other is the 'travesty', or fantastic vision of the world transformed.

In the literature of primitive people both types can be seen clearly, sometimes separately and sometimes in combination. 'Literature' is not a very satisfactory word, since it implies letters, while the most primitive peoples are illiterate; but no one has found a better word for the art of verbal expression, so I shall use it without further apology. Nor shall I apologise for discussing primitive literature, since it is not essentially different from the more sophisticated literature of higher civilisations. The problems of living, the experiences of love and death, the delights and miseries of primitive men are not so very different from ours; and many men from a simpler world even than Homer's have found out how to express such things movingly in words. The anthropologist Paul Radin has pointed out that every primitive society has a highly developed literary culture, in which nearly all the genres of sophisticated literature appear more or less distinctly, sometimes presented with astonishing poetic or narrative skill, with satire conspicuous among them.

I know of no tribe where satires or formal narratives avowedly humorous have not attained a rich development. Examples of every conceivable form are found, from broad lampoon and crude invective to subtle innuendo and satire based on man's stupidity, his gluttony and his lack of a sense of proportion.

The simplest example of the first type (lampoon, invective) is the Eskimo song of derision. Eskimo society was until recently on about the same level as that of the late Stone Age, it lacked any distinct system of law, let alone police or magistrates to enforce the law, or school-masters or preachers to warn against misconduct its religion has no strong supernatural sanctions such as hell where evil-doers will be punished. The chief means of punishing bad social behaviour is by the satirical song, which makes the delinquent hang his head in shame. The Eskimo satirist has precisely the same aim as Alexander Pope, to make "Men not afraid of God afraid of me". This is said to work in practice: the man who is worsted in a satirical song-contest will try to reform himself; in extreme cases one can picture him stumbling wretchedly out of the igloo, like Captain Gates on Scott's polar expedition, to rid the community of an obnoxious burden - which is more than Pope's victims ever did. Satire-duels of this kind are also found among the Indians of the north-west coast of America and in Melanesia. They cannot all be described as moral in intention, since some consist of direct attacks on individuals for the purpose of revenge or the assertion of superiority; but in so far as literature is a public activity and thus preferable to private violence, they contain the germ of moral and also of political satire that is, of literature as propaganda for right action, which "heals with morals what it hurts with…”

The primitive lampoon is closely related to the curse, and the curse or imprecation is based on beliefs in the magical power of the word. By an effective combination of images and rhythms, and by the invocation of supernatural forces the curse is intended to exert a positive influence over its victim, to make him shrivel up or die, or a negative influence, to restrain his powers of doing evil. That, at least, is one way of putting it. In this view, satire springs from primitive witchcraft; it is thus the verbal equivalent of pointing the death-bone and causing an Australian aborigine to die of sheer terror, or perhaps better, of making a wax image of your victim and sticking pins in it.

But this only raises the question: why is the word considered to be magical? The answer may be simply that the word is magical because of its satirical, that is, literary power. A curse, like other literary forms, is effective just as far as it is well composed, in compelling rhythms skilful rhetoric, relevant argument and true content - which are among the normal criteria for all good literature. Wizards, of course may sometimes mumble a curse in a dead language or in nonsense words, but even then the literary qualities of sound and rhythm would seem to be important. Most primitive curses and lampoons, however, seem to be lucid and meant for effective communication, like this love-curse from the Ba-Ronga of south-eastern Africa:

Refuse me as much as you wish, my dear!

The corn you eat at home it is made of human eyes!

The goblets that you use, they are of human skulls!

The manicoc roots you eat, they are of human shin-bones!

The potatoes you eat, they are of human hands!

Refuse me as much as you wish!

No one desires you!

That could hardly make its point more tellingly...The word used with literary art really can affect people in a striking way, even to the point of sickness and death...In this view, written word precedes magic in history: the proven power of the word to cause acute shame and demoralization led to the attribution of magic powers to the word. I presume therefore that primitive literature has a practical purpose and effect, just as the purpose of a love-lyric is to win the beloved, so the purpose of primitive satire is to get the better of the enemy; and primitives try to achieve these ends, less by invoking magical sanctions than by normal literary means, by graphic style and telling content.

That kind of primitive satire connected both with the curse and with the personal lampoon, is one of the origins of modern political and moral satire, which calls for repentance and reform. But it is not the only origin. Complaint and moral teaching alone, even when expressed with wit and point, do not of themselves make satire. In all literary satire, we can recognise another dimension which also has primitive roots. Satire at all levels must entertain as well as try to influence conduct, and the entertainment comes, I think, chiefly from the joy of hearing a travesty, a fantastic inversion of the real world. The type figure of primitive travesty is the trickster, who is at the centre of many legends of the North American Indians, fully described by Radin; while a variant of the trickster, Eshun-Elegba, is well-known in West African folktale and sculpture. The Winnebago trickster is a semi-divine man, who breaks all the most sacred taboos and consequently is driven out of society and forced to go alone on a fantastic journey on which he has many absurd and often violent adventures. He is totally anarchic, especially in his sexual behaviour: ...and yet part of his education is to change sex and bear children. The trickster is both sinned against and sinning, both fool and rogue, shark and gull, a Priapic buffoon - and among other things the probable ancestor of the moral hero of the picaresque novel. Trickster stories belong to the religious mythology of the tribe, and are told on solemn occasions, yet they treat with levity everything that is most sacred in the tribe's religious life:...(The most sacred institutions are} held up to ridicule in the trickster, then is profoundly subversive, it is as Kerenyi says, "to add disorder to order and so make a whole to render possible, within the fixed bounds of what is permitted and experience of what is not permitted.”

The name of the Winnebago trickster (Wardunkaga} means 'spider' and his myths are related to stories of cunning-foolish animals found all over the world; the best known to Europeans are those of Reynard the Fox. In west Africa in particular, stories are told about the clever spider; and among the Yoruba there is a special trickster, a divine creature in human form whose adventures sexual and criminal, are not unlike those of the African spider and the Winnebago trickster. He is described by Joan Westcott as "a creature of instinct and great energy who serves a dual role, as a rule-breaker he is...a spanner in the social…”

Why Don’t Women Succeed?

In modern western civilisation women have won the right to higher education, to vote, and very recently to a degree of sexual freedom more nearly comparable to that of men. But they are clearly underrepresented in high-level positions of power, status and accomplishment. One important study which followed children with high intellectual ability into adulthood revealed that gifted males were much more likely than gifted females to attain a high level of occupational achievement and creative productivity.

Does society, as the feminist movement says, unfairly discriminate against women, or are women in some sense less qualified than men in areas of achievement? In a technological age, when physical prowess is less important, shouldn't women be expected gradually to assume equal status with men in all areas of achievement? Recent psychological research - primarily on white Americans - suggests that, besides external social barriers to achievement, there is in fact a constellation of internal personality characteristics which makes achievement difficult for women.

Clearly, in most aspects of western society, it is a man's world. Man, in the generic sense (as in "mankind"), is used to refer both to men and women. Male children are preferred to females in many societies, and although boys are generally satisfied with their sex, girls frequently say they would prefer to be boys. Because it is a man's world, one must view women in relation to men, since it is against men as well as women that women compete and are compared. One of the most obvious determinants of success is ability. Do men and women differ in ability, then? Tests of general intelligence do not usually reveal differences in IQ between men and women. This is primarily because such tests have been constructed to minimise such differences. That is, they normally do not include items which markedly favour one sex or the other. Some sex differences are revealed by tests of specific abilities. Girls show accelerated language development in the early years of life. Although boys tend to catch up in most respects by adolescence, girls do better in grammar, spelling and word fluency throughout the school years. On the other hand, boys show superiority in "spatial" ability, some aspects of analytic ability (finding a "hidden" figure in a picture, changing set or restructuring a problem), and mathematical reasoning, particularly from puberty on. Some of these differences (spatial ability, for example) may be genetically determined. However, it is clear that cultural influences interact with biological predispositions.

It is important to point out that these sex differences in intellectual ability are not substantial. In all these areas the scores of males and females largely overlap. The implications of these findings are not that girls should not become mathematicians or engineers, but rather that more boys than girls may be suited for such careers. Conversely, more girls than boys may be suited for careers requiring verbal skills. Differences in ability are probably not nearly as important an obstacle to women's achievement as the conflicts which many women experience. The best-known, of course, is the conflict between having a career and a family. But there are other conflicts, stemming from personality dispositions which, though more subtle, are no less important.

Certain behaviour, attributes, attitudes and feelings are expected of men - and others of women. These include such things as ways of dressing, division of household chores; skill and interest in gross motor and mechanical tasks, and different expectations regarding nurturance, independence and aggression. Male-females differences appear in the first years of life, and certain consistent patterns detrimental to success appear in females from an early age.

One study of child-rearing practices in a large number of mostly non-literate societies revealed that, in over 80 per cent of the societies, greater training in self-reliance and achievement was given to boys than to girls. As one author who reviewed research on this subject puts it: "Females are supposed to inhibit aggression and open display of sexual urges, to be passive with men, to be nurturant to others, to cultivate attractiveness, and to maintain an effective, socially poised and friendly posture with others. Males are urged to be aggressive in the face of attack, independent in problem situations, sexually aggressive, in control of regressive urges, and, suppressive of strong emotion, especially anxiety."

How far are these differences biologically determined? The author suggests that social pattern they discovered tend to fit women for child-rearing and activities centred in the home, while the stress on self-reliance and achievement prepares men for warfare, hunting and other economic activities. But, noting the greater physical strength of men and the childbearing of women, they concluded that the differences in socialisation were not arbitrary customs but the adaptation of culture to the biological differences between men and women; They found that the greatest sex differences tended to occur in societies with economies that required the superior strength and motor skills of the males and in societies where the family group was large. Where the small "nuclear" family is isolated, the husband must sometimes be able to take the role of the wife when she is absent or incapacitated, and vice-versa.

Sex role standards tend to produce conflicts about achievement when young people begin to think about careers and marriage. During adolescence it tends to be more acceptable for the brightest boys to excel in scholarship because it is seen as preparation for a career. Girls often find themselves in a "double bind", because on the one hand they want to make good grades to please their parents and teachers, and on the other they fear that scholarly success will make them less attractive to boys.

In one study college undergraduates were asked to tell a story about a member of their own sex who was at the top of his or her medical school class. Over 65 per cent of the girls' stories revealed fears that success would result in social rejection or loss of feminity or the stories simply denied that a woman could attain such success. Less than 10 per cent of the boys revealed misgivings about attaining success. Girls who feared success typically planned to become housewives, nurses or school-teachers, while those with little fear of success often intended to go to graduate school and to enter such careers as mathematics or chemistry.

Another study of adolescents reveals that the dreams and plans of boys are realistically oriented towards their adult occupational identity. Girls have a less clear future orientation, primarily because they feel they are not free to plan a career since it may not be consistent with marriage. They tend to subordinate their own achievement aspirations. Instead, they have vocational aspirations for their future husbands. Their plans tend to focus on educational and work opportunities before marriage: their fantasy themes concern personal attractiveness and popularity.

It is clear that both non-literate and "advanced" societies tend to develop different personality characteristics in men and women. A closer look at those aspects of personality which directly influence achievement and success shows important internal causes of women's lack of achievement. In a world in which success often requires aggressiveness in competition and personal and emotional independence, women characteristically demonstrate a lack of self-confidence, dependence and a strong need for social approval.

1. Fear of failure and lack of self-confidence. There is abundant evidence that women are more apprehensive about the adequacy of their performance than men. Some research by one of us and his students, as well as by other investigators, reveals a picture of feminine anxiety about achievement. Both girls and women report that they experience more symptoms of anxiety during academic and intelligence tests than men. Fear of a failing grade is a more important impetus to cheat in examinations on the part of girls than boys.

When faced with a choice among tasks which vary in difficulty, girls are more likely than boys to choose easier tasks at which they are less likely to fail. Girls tend to be more easily discouraged by failure. Boys are more likely to return to tasks which they have not yet mastered while girls tend to repeat those at which they have already been successful. Numerous studies show that girls, from elementary school to college, have lower expectations of accomplishment in intellectual and academic activities than boys, even though girls typically have somewhat better grades. In general, girls tend to downgrade their abilities. After self-perceived success in a task, as well as self-perceived failure, girls rate their ability at the task substantially lower than boys. There is also a tendency among girls to attribute the outcorr1e of their actions to external influences beyond their control, such as good luck or bad fortune. Boys are more likely to perceive themselves as responsible for their actions.

2. Dependence and need for social approval. Another element in women's make-up, which acts as a deterrent to success, is dependence.

There is some evidence that parents are more attentive and affectionate towards girls than boys especially in the early years. This may contribute to the development of greater dependence in females and a greater responsiveness to social pressures. Moreover, dependence is more acceptable in females than in males. One longitudinal study showed that dependence in childhood was more closely related to adult dependence for women than for men, probably because dependent behaviour in males is discouraged as they grow up. As adults, women show greater concern with financial security than men, and a greater preference for safe jobs with modest incomes, as opposed to riskier positions with higher pay.

There are many indications that women are more concerned about social approval than men. College women, who were put in a competitive situation, were willing to sacrifice their own chances of success in order to help their partners, whereas men were not. The women slow down in their performance, in response to a plea for help from a partner who was also a friend, but men did not. A wish to win approval may also help to account for the fact that women display greater conformity, in the face of social pressure, than men.

3. Aggression and competition. In contrast to women's typical pattern of dependence and conformity, men tend to be more active and aggressive. That these differences in aggressiveness in animals, and by research indicating that male hormones are related to the level of aggressiveness. Again, however, aggression is usually viewed as less acceptable in girls than in boys. Upbringing tends to reduce aggression in girls, and longitudinal findings shows that aggression is a more stable aspect of personality for males than for females.

Clinical studies provide one possible explanation of how these male-female differences interfere with women's performance. Women who fear the consequence of their own hostility, and who view getting a good grade or a desirable job as tantamount to the hostile defeat of some other person, will unquestionably experience conflict in competitive situations. Empirical evidence suggests that men are more likely to work better in competition than when alone, whereas the reverse is true of women. Moreover, men may compete even more strongly against women than against men. Hence, women suffer in competition with men, both because their own performance deteriorates and because that of the men improves.

4. Achievement motivation - two kinds of women? One personality attribute particularly relevant to success is motivation to achieve i.e. a desire to do a good job, to excel, to attain high standards of excellence, not for the sake of some extrinsic benefit such as monetary reward or social status, but for the sake of pride in accomplishment. This kind of motivation makes a person seek success, work hard in response to challenge and enjoy achievement activities.

As with other personality variables there are sex differences, but they are complex and hard to interpret. In elementary school, boys make higher scores on a measure of achievement motivation than girls. At later stages it is difficult to assess comparative levels of achievement motivation because, though adolescent and adult women express a high level of concern about achievement, they tend to express it vicariously in their expectations and aspirations for the achievement of men. For example, when asked to tell stories, they are likely to depict men as achieving but not women.

Once again, women seem at a disadvantage with respect to an important ingredient of success. However, research suggests that some women are different from the norm in their orientation towards achievement and success. There are probably the ones who can compete most effectively in a man's world. One study in which high school girls told stories showed that girls with good academic records attributed the strongest achievement motivation to female characters; under-achieving goals, with poor academic records, attributed the strongest achievement motivation to male characters. High achievers saw intellectual achievement as an acceptable and desirable part of their female role. Under-achievers saw achievement as more relevant for men.

Thus, the fact that few women rise to the highest level of accomplishment is probably due not only to male attitudes, or the structure of the feminine personality. Any of the elements in the four-part profile, taken separately, might not pose a major problem. But they add up to an anti-success syndrome which disposes a woman to avoid evaluative and competitive situations, to under-aspire, to underrate her abilities, to seek job security , to lack initiative and an entrepreneurial spirit, and to feel at the mercy of factors beyond her control. For women with these tendencies, the magic removal of social barriers and male discrimination would not lead to instant accomplishment.

That this pattern does not, however, characterise all women is demonstrated in a recent study of professional women. They were described as being more dominant, adventuresome, sensitive, imaginative, unconventional, secure and self-sufficient than adult women in general.

The prescription for improving women's lot does not involve making women into men. The solution of some feminists - to strive for separatism and to compete with (or emasculate?) males - amounts to identification with the aggressor. The proper solution should not deny biological differences, nor do away with women's distinctive capabilities. Rather it is necessary to change society to make its values less monolithic, and to change women to make them more free to pursue their interests and abilities in whatever direction they may lead. We should change the way we bring girls up, beginning in infancy, in order to encourage and make enjoyable achievements, independence and exploration; foster a realistic estimation of one's abilities and a sense of responsibility for one's action; develop a wide range of interests which include "masculine" as well as "feminine" activities; provide opportunities for identification with fathers and brothers as well as with mothers and sisters; avoid defining a woman's value exclusively in terms of physical attractiveness or social skills.

That society is best which enables the largest proportion of its members to contribute to it, and at the same time to attain self-fulfillment. It should be possible for a woman to have both a family and a career, to be a success as a wife and mother, as well as to achieve in a man's and woman's world.

Preface to "The Environment Game"

If men were intended to work the soil they would have longer arms. In truth, we evolved as hunters and we remain the most efficient, predatory animals of all, shrewd of brain, infinitely adaptable of body, and with hands to make and wield weapons. Yet since the invention of agriculture some 10,000 years ago, most men have been obliged to bend their straight backs to cultivate the land. We have grown mightily in numbers and have constructed remarkable civilizations on the basis of agriculture. But we have made it a distinctively boring world for most people; only in sport and in war can we recapture something of the excitement of the chase, which was everyday occupation of the first of our species.

It is a good moment to reconsider how we should live. In the first place, we have recently acquired some astonishing powers. We can get energy from its ultimate source, the annihilation of matter in nuclear reactions. We can modify the heredity of plants and animals. In the computer we have a machine more revolutionary even than the steam engine. In short, we have a torrent of knowledge and skills at our disposal, to shape our civilization along quite novel lines. Yet, there is little sense of direction or purpose; instead of guiding the torrent we are being wept along by it to some unknown destination. Unless we start picking and choosing between the technological courses open to us, we shall shortly finish up with an ugly, noisy, overcrowded, hungry, chaotic world. The present trends point to affluence and boredom for the richer countries, a tightening grip of poverty and righteous envy on the part of the less fortunate, with intensifying nationalistic policies reinforced by the technological competition and a spread of nuclear weapons. Yet we have the means at our disposal to make it quite otherwise.

A second compelling reason for looking with a flesh mind at the roots of our civilization is that agriculture is simply failing us. Only by the very greatest efforts can it provide adequate foods for the growing population in the under-developed countries, and after twenty years of talking about the "problem" there is still no sign that such efforts will be made. The obstacles are human rather than technical; so it is appropriate to look for alternative methods of producing food that may encounter fewer social obstacles. Such methods exist, or can be invented.

Thirdly, there is the ever present risk of annihilation. Men, the hunters-manques, have put such intellectual and physical resources into hunting their fellow-men that we can now conceivably achieve what all our natural enemies have failed in our own total extinction. Short of that (which is technically a little awkward) we can wreak unimaginable suffering on our own kind, and devastate our own works. We know it perfectly well, yet we do not shrink from the preparations, because warfare continues to fascinate us. In nations, as in individuals, readiness to fight is still regarded as a mainstay of honour. Only if we give due weight and outlet to the manly aggressive instincts of the hunter in each of us can we hope to avoid a disaster. A policy so based in entirely feasible.

These three apparently diverse considerations converge on a single technical question: whether the widespread cultivation of the soil remains the most appropriate source of our first physical requirement - our food. And it is around the negative answer to this question that this book revolves.

In arguing for the replacement of most of agriculture by artificial methods of food production, I am conscious that it will seem so profound a change to many people that it could easily acquire the status of a dogma, a heresy, or a panacea. I hope that it will not be taken in any of those glib senses. It is neither an original proposal nor is it essential in the sense that no other course is conceivable. The choice is not between 100 per cent agriculture or 100 per cent synthetic food; rather it is a matter of deciding, in something which is more than a prediction but less than a policy, what the balance between the two sources should be. Certainly I should regret it bitterly if the proposition about synthetic food should be seized upon by people incapable of distinguishing between the short-term and the long-term, as a distraction from the immediate task of developing agricultural food production as rapidly as possible.

Because I believe strongly that too many discussions of future possibilities are narrowly and therefore falsely based on one or two "bright ideas", this book broadens out from a discussion of agriculture and its replacement for a conspectus of other, simultaneous trends that have to be harmonized in that world of our children and grandchildren. Despite these disclaimers, I am out to persuade. Synthetic food production deserves a massive programme of research, development, and application, here and now. And although others have casually or earnestly discussed the possibilities, as far as I know this is the first attempt to consider them against the broad panorama of our skills and needs. In making the attempt it has become apparent to me that the liberation of large areas of the planet's surface could enable us, in the nick of time, to reconstruct our way of life.

In Defence of Examinations

One of the clichés of our time is that examinations are unjust. It is, perhaps worth having a look at any cliché to see what has happened to the truth in it - has it survived repetition or not? I feel particularly strongly about the confusion that is generally involved in the attack on examinations. First of all, there is not just one set of examination which is under fire, but at least two: the school-leaving and university-qualifying examinations of GCE A-level, and the final examination at the end of the university undergraduate course. It may be that both of these kinds of examinations are bad; but if so they may be bad in different ways.

And then the examination system, itself, is attacked for two separate faults. One is that the existence of examinations necessitates a syllabus, and that this has a narrowing and restrictive effect on teaching and learning. The second fault is quite different - namely, that the examinations themselves are unfair, and this again in two ways. It is said that the standards of the examiners cannot be made uniform and that equally good candidates may get widely different results: secondly, it is said that the three-hour written paper is in itself unfair to those candidates who have bad memories, bad nerves or are otherwise to be labelled "bad examinees", but yet who may be just as good as other candidates in some respects.

Is there any way out of this? For there is no doubt that it would be very agreeable to have an end to this particular kind of complaining before very much longer - if for no other reason than that candidates and their families get extremely worried and depressed, not so much by the examinations themselves as by the whole atmosphere of gloom and terror which is coming to surround them.

The first thing to decide is the fundamental question, whether we need examinations or not. The obvious answer to this is that if some people are cleverer than others, and if it is of interest to universities or future employers to discover who is cleverer than whom, then we need examinations, because there is no other equally efficient way of distinguishing between what people can do. But this may be too superficial a view. It is true that at present (and for the foreseeable future) we live in a condition of scarcity, so that there must be competition for available jobs, and at an earlier stage for available university or polytechnic places. But since this situation does not exist of logical necessity, it might be worth, even now, working out a system of selection which did not involve examining people on a particular occasion, but rather keeping records of their achievements which could be computerised, so that the most suitable further training or job could be found.

The difficulties in the way of such a scheme are, however, very great. Many people might prefer even the distasteful business of examinations to the somewhat sinister sense of being under observation from the cradle to the grave, or at least from entry to school to departure for a job. But it seems to me that, difficult though this solution is, if there is enough evidence against examinations, then even in our present situation, we should try seriously, .and not as mere fantasy, to discover an alternative to them.

Let us assume, though, that there is no alternative, and that as long as people need to be selected for things, examinations are necessary. The next question is: are our present examinations intolerably bad tools of selection? First of all, are their syllabuses too restrictive? It seems absolutely necessary, at least at school to have agreed syllabuses of some kind if one is going to have external examinations, common to groups of schools and examined by common examiners. In principle it would be possible for at least part of every examination - even at school - to be a paper on a subject chosen by the candidate. In practice the difficulty of achieving fair examining on this scheme would be insuperable.

Complaints about the syllabus tend to spill over into complaints about the methods of examining. For those who dislike the one tend also, to dislike the other. The great educational contrast today is between, on the one hand, the more accumulation of facts, where the pupil is a passive recipient of pre-digested material and on the other hand, project-work in which the pupil finds things out for himself. So those who think that the syllabus of the GCE is restrictive also think that people should be examined, if at all, on what they have done for themselves rather than on (to use the cliché phrase) what they can "churn out" of the pre-digested material.

The very same demand is made at university level. Examinations at the level of finals should, it is sometimes said, be more like examinations for doctorates. They should offer candidates the chance to show what they have been able to do on their own, in the way of original research. There are at least two serious objections to this proposal, at whatever level it is made. One is that, desirable though it may be for everyone to be enterprising and inquiring, there is in fact a very limited number of subjects on which undergraduate - to say nothing of schoolboys - are in a position to do research.

At primary school level it is excellent to see the children projects, because you are thereby teaching them how to find things out, and how to observe and to record. No one would demand that their findings should be original. Real - as opposed to pretended -research cannot be undertaken except on the basis of a wide knowledge of what other people have done in the same field. It is this knowledge which has to be acquired at school and at university.

Children can, of course, criticise the findings of their elders, and will do so increasingly as their knowledge increases. But there is a pre-posterous lack of scholarly humility in the suggestion that it is a waste of time to read what others have thought -whether about chemistry, history or literature.

The other objection to examination on "project work" is a practical one. But the work and the examining must be cumbersome and extremely time-consuming. It is possibly all right for some pupils at secondary schools to go out with their notebooks to question dockers or miners about their day's work or their average earnings. But, alas, what would happen if everyone did it.

And, to return to the question of fairness, how would these exercises be assessed? FOL part of the question the examiner would have to ask would be: was it a sensible subject to undertake? How good was the advice he got in carrying out such research? and so on. I feel a deep scepticism about the possibilities of examining children, or undergraduates, when there are so many incomparable factors in their work. I also doubt the value of such work. Is it really a good training for the future to allow children to base general conclusions on just their own investigations?

Nonetheless, if examinations are to remain tests of knowledge and of ability to think about what one has read, there may still be ways of making them less nerve-wracking. But the method of giving candidates three weeks or a fortnight to write their extended essay (a method now in use in some universities) is, in fact, I suspect, just as productive of nervous strain as the old system of three-hour papers.

What people seem to dread most about the three-hour ordeal is that they will, just at that moment suffer a total failure of memory and forget even the date of the battle of Waterloo. I personally see no reason why all examinations, while lasting the statutory three hours, should not permit the candidate to bring in with him a text, a dictionary, a list of dates or formulae - whatever would help him to put aside this particular fear .The weaker candidates would write less than they do now in three hours because they would spend more time looking things up. But the really good candidates would do just as well or better than they do now. The examination could become less a test of memory and more a test of understanding. The particular nightmare fear which now leads some candidates to breakdowns and others to cheating (usually pathetically incompetently) would be done away with. I wish very much that some university or some GCE examining board would try this for a year.