Examiner

“ No doubt, a great deal is to done by the careful selection of examiners, and by the copious introduction of practical work, to remove the evils inseparable from examination; but, under the best of circumstances, I believe that examination will remain but an imperfect test of knowledge, and a still more imperfect test of capacity, while it tells next to nothing about a man's power as an investigator. ”

“ If the questions which are now asked are not too severe when taken alone, they are regarded by many competent judges as frequently too severe when taken in combination with the other subjects examined upon, and also that they are sometimes calculated to puzzle the student, from the form in which they are worded. Not long ago an examiner at the London University, speaking to another examiner, boasted of the puzzling questions he had been ingenious enough to ask, whereupon the other replied, to my great satisfaction, "You should try and find out how much, not how little, the students know." ”

“ Examination—thorough, searching examination—is an indispensable accompaniment of teaching; but I am almost inclined to commit myself to the very heterodox proposition that it is a necessary evil. I am a very old examiner, having, for some twenty years past, been occupied with examinations on a considerable scale, of all sorts and conditions of men, and women too—from the boys and girls of elementary schools, to the candidates for honors and fellowships in the universities. ”

“ One source of mischief lies in the fact that an examiner constantly forgets that the department in which he examines is only one of many, and hence he requires a degree of perfection which is simply absurd—one which, however, suited to honors, is totally unreasonable in a pass examination ”

“ A witness ought not to be pressed in cross-examination as to any facts which, if admitted, would not affect the question at issue or the credibility of the witness. If the cross-examiner intends to adduce evidence contrary to the evidence given by the witness, he ought to put to the witness in cross-examination the substance of the evidence which he proposes to adduce, in order to give the witness an opportunity of retracting or explaining. ”

“ Then from the department the papers are packed off to the examiner who has that territory in which the someone referred to was last known to reside, and, if that someone can be found, his deposition is taken, added to the pile and again the lot is returned to the department, with the summary of this examiner, which is his individual opinion of that one man's testimony. ”

“ If a definite plan of examination is followed one may feel reasonably sure, when the examination is finished, that no important point has been overlooked and that the examiner is in a position to arrive at an opinion that is as accurate as is possible for him. ”

“ As I have already intimated, the only plan which can be adopted is to choose able and impartial men for examiners, and trust them to appreciate the merits of the papers submitted by the candidate to them.
The examiners will find many perplexing cases I have no doubt; one great source of trouble seems to me to consist in the fact that what may be a sound demonstration to one person with adequate preliminary study is not a demonstration to another person who has not gone through the discipline. ”

“ While the examiners and the representatives of the Safety Bureau were the only ones designated to ask questions directly of any witness, the Presiding Examiner, acting under instruction of the Board, announced at the opening of the hearing that any person who had any evidence, questions, or suggestions to present for consideration in the proceeding might submit them to the Examiners. ”

“ When I endeavour to examine my own conduct, when I endeavour to pass sentence upon it, and either to approve or condemn it, it is evident that, in all such cases, I divide myself, as it were, into two persons; and that I, the examiner and judge, represent a different character from that other I, the person whose conduct is examined into and judged of. ”

“ It is certainly marvellous what an amount of knowledge candidates will produce before their examiners; but those who have been both examined and examiners know best how fleeting that knowledge often is, and how different from that other knowledge which has been acquired slowly and quietly, for its own sake, for our own sake, without a thought as to whether it would ever pay at examinations or not. ”

“ Provided always, That it shall and may be lawful to and for the said Master, Wardens, and Assistants, to choose and appoint any such Person or Persons going out of Office, again to be an Examiner or Examiners, as aforesaid, if they the said Master, Wardens, and Assistants, shall deem it adviseable so to do. ”

“ Our teachers must pass an examination—though the examiner sometimes does not know as much as the candidate,—for misguiding the youthful mind; the lawyer cannot practice without study and a formal admission to the bar ”

“ The duty of the Examiners was twofold, firstly to ascertain by inspecting the schedules given by his Masters that the candidate had completed the necessary residence and attended Lectures in the prescribed subjects, and secondly to examine him in the contents of his books. If he passed this Examination, he was admitted to determine.
Determination was a great day in the student's University life. It retained much of its primitive character of a student's festivity. ”

“ Many of the comicalities in the way of examination answers recorded by her Majesty’s inspectors of schools, the examiners in the school board scholarships competitions, and other the like official personages, go a long way to prove that in examination blundering, as in many other matters, truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. ”

“ I imagine that an Examiner who knows his students personally, must not unfrequently have found himself in the position of finding A's paper better than B's, though his own judgment tells him, quite clearly, that B is the man who has the larger share of genuine capacity.
Again, there is a fallacy about Examiners. It is commonly supposed that any one who knows a subject is competent to teach it; and no one seems to doubt that any one who knows a subject is competent to examine in it. ”

“ And it must at all events be allowed, that to conduct examinations on this footing satisfactorily, would require a degree of judgment and temper on the part of the examiners beyond what it is fair to require from any body of men. ”

“ Examiners are appointed to take a view of all their beauties, who fix values upon them in proportion to their various merits, at sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, or more carats; and only those are brought to court whose values reach to a certain appointed rate. ”

“ It is obvious on the face of it that this could be no proper criterion for so important a decision as to qualifications; special crammers studied the examiners, their questions, and their teachings, and luck had a great deal to do with success. While some men never did themselves justice in examinations, others were exactly the reverse. ”

“ Examiners to be actual professors in said faculty, the fittest whom the Senatus can select, with fit assessors or coadjutors and witnesses, if the Senatus see good, and always the report of the said examiners to be minuted and signed, and to govern the appointments made, and to be recorded therewith. ”

“ These comparisons are useful and satisfactory, because they prove that our examinations really do bring out the best men: since the trials of successive years, by different examiners and on diiferent subjects, show corresponding results. You float to the top, because you are the lightest and fittest to ascend. ”

“ Because a great number of examiners chosen haphazard turned out to be negligent and incompetent as examiners, because their incapacity created a cynical trade in cramming, a great number of people have come to the conclusion, just as examinations are being improved into efficiency, that all examinations are bad. ”

“ CHAPTER V CROSS-EXAMINATION OF EXPERTS
In these days when it is impossible to know everything, but it becomes necessary for success in any avocation to know something of everything and everything of something, the expert is more and more called upon as a witness both in civil and criminal cases. In these times of specialists, their services are often needed to aid the jury in their investigations of questions of fact relating to subjects with which the ordinary man is not acquainted. ”

“ No person who has passed an examination shall, while eligible on the register supplied by such examination, be reexamined, unless he shall furnish evidence satisfactory to the Commission that at the time of his examination he was, because of illness or other good cause, incapable of doing himself justice in said examination. ”

“ In certain situations, however, more is asked with regard to the experts. The expert, whether a very modest workman or very renowned scholar, must in the first instance become convinced of the judge’s complete interest in his work; of the judge’s power to value the effort and knowledge it requires; of the fact that he does not question and listen merely because the law requires it, and finally of the fact that the judge is endowed, so far as may be, with a definite comprehension of the expert’s task. ”

“ For an adequate scientific examination of the question of registers, many qualifications are required in the investigator; and the student, when not an investigator, should endeavor to weigh the evidence presented so as to choose with caution from among conflicting opinions. ”

“ The greatest safeguard is, that upon the trial of a question of fact both sides are represented by counsel, and the opportunity which cross-examination offers to an advocate of even reasonable and ordinary skill is such, that these conclusions and inferences may be sifted down through the chain of observation, and the process of drawing these conclusions and inferences from a series of facts, tested in such a manner that the improbability, probability, or truth of any given inference or conclusion may be determined with substantial accuracy. ”

“ One may be competent to testify as an expert, although his special knowledge of the particular subject of enquiry has been derived from the reading and study of standard authorities, and not from experience or actual observation. But one cannot qualify himself as an expert in a particular case merely by devoting himself to the study of authorities for the purposes of that case, when such reading and study is not in the line of his special calling or profession and is entered upon to enable him to testify in the case. ”

“ In the first place, many thoroughly competent experts in any department of science distinctly and peremptorily refuse to be mixed up in any affair which may expose them to cross examination. Many experts will investigate a matter, give a report of their conclusions, but absolutely refuse to appear in court. ”

“ Darrow—We are going to try to co-operate with the court and do it expeditiously. Now I am not—I don't suppose the court has considered the question of competency of evidence. My associates and myself have fairly definite ideas as to it, but I don’t know how counsel on the other side feel about it. I think that scientists are competent evidence—or competent witnesses here, to explain what evolution is, and that they are competent on both sides. ”

“ What is an inspection? Something which can be accomplished by looking at or weighing or measuring the thing to be inspected, or applying to it at once some crucial test. When testimony or evidence is to be taken and examined, it is not inspection in any sense whatever. ”

“ Method of Preliminary Examination of Experts—On Medical Questions a Licensed Physician Presumed Competent.—As the system exists here, the only power that the court has over the selection of an expert, is to determine, in advance of his testimony and of the elucidation of his opinions, whether or not he is competent as an expert. ”

“ We have, therefore, to assume that their perceptions will vary with the number and manner of their accomplishments, and we may almost convince ourselves that each examinee who has to give evidence concerning his sense-perception should literally undergo examination to make clear his scholarly status and thereby the value of his testimony. ”

“ For the purpose of the object on which we now enter, we have consulted a great mass of documents, and have had recourse to the personal experience of a gentleman who has made this kind of research his business. In every statement we make, we shall speak by the card, that equivocation may not undo us. The proof of every assertion, is ready to our hand.
The public have lately heard some trifling facts relative to Doctors’ Commons, through the medium of a young gentleman who was articled, by his aunt, to a proctor there. ”

“ The cross-examination of various experts, whether medical, handwriting, real estate, or other specialists, is a subject of growing importance, but it is intended in this chapter merely to make some suggestions, and to give a few illustrations of certain methods that may be adopted with more or less success in the examination of this class of witnesses. ”

“ The man whose work was to be inspected or investigated, met the inspector or investigator at the door, showed him all he wished him to see and examine witnesses wholly in his power—when the inspected and inspector, the investigated and investigator exchanged compliments, and the public were gratified to learn that all was in a most gratifying condition of perfect order. ”

“ Each special examination shall embrace, in addition to the special subject upon which the applicant is to be tested, as many of the subjects of the clerk examination as the Commission may decide to be necessary to test fitness for the place to be filled. ”