Qualification

“ I will accept your qualification so that you may accept mine: you also are an exception, and as here we are not going to talk about exceptions, nor plead for ourselves, at least, I mean, I'm not, I beg of my professor to change the course of the conversation. ”

“ The meanest qualification you can mention in a useful teacher is diligence And without diligence no possible abilities or qualifications can bring children on either with speed or profit. There must be a Combination of qualifications which must all operate strongly & uniformly. ”

“ A State can require high standards of qualification, such as good moral character or proficiency in its law, before it admits an applicant to the bar, but any qualification must have a rational connection with the applicant's fitness or capacity to practice law. ”

“ These clauses have the function of surrounding the central statement in such a fashion that we have an intricate design of thought characterized by involution, or the emergence of one detail out of another. James’ famous practice of using the dependent clause not only for qualification, but for the qualification of qualification, and in some cases for the qualification of qualification of qualification, indicates a persistent sorting out of experience expressive of the highly civilized mind. ”

“ But it seemed to me that the good of the service required that the person to be appointed should be possessed of certain traits and qualifications which no theoretical examination would develop. One having in charge two or three hundred men of the class with which a weigher has to deal should possess personal courage, energy, decision and firmness of character. It is entirely certain that the possession of such qualifications could not in the least be determined by the result of an examination organized for the purpose of testing an applicant’s knowledge and education. ”

“ The degree, the qualification the practical limitations, which in the progress of time, with social and industrial changes supervening at home and abroad, may be rendered expedient or necessary in the application of the principle, constitute quite a different question, which may be discussed and entertained without any disparagement of the soundness of the policy, as best adapted to existing circumstances, of the system when first applied. ”

“ We want people who know about life at large, who will come to the public service seasoned by experience, not people who have specialised and acquired that sort of knowledge which is called, in much the same spirit of qualification as one speaks of German Silver, Expert Knowledge. ”

“ The choice rests with himself; he will be what he wants to be, or what he is able to be—professor, engineer, physician, member of the bar, an administrator or a functionary. In each of his qualifications he renders an important service to the public, he exercises an honorable profession; let him be competent and expert, that concerns society. ”

“ They assign the qualifications that constitute competency for a certain function. 2. They decide that there are persons in the community answering to this character. 3. They opine that the view such persons take or would take, imports an assertion of the truth of the idea in question. 4. They accredit that view with being strictly one, supposing that all qualified to arbitrate would acquiesce and agree in the same. 5. They attribute to themselves a similar unanimity. 6. They assume the sufficiency of their own judgment to make all the above conclusions. ”

“ A complete work, and one recognised for its merit, should remain the essential qualification for election to the literary sections, and the same test should be applied as far as possible to the scientific branches. ”

“ You will have had a general education from the State up to the age of sixteen or seventeen, and then three or four years of sound technical training, so that you will know your work from top to bottom. You will have applied for your present position in the service, whatever it is, and have been accepted, much as you apply and are accepted for positions now, by the school managers, and you will have done so because it attracted you and they will have accepted you because your qualifications seemed adequate to them. ”

“ Now, my dear Spinageberd, I first call your attention to that portion which is headed 'Qualifications necessary for an Orangeman;' and I think you will agree with me that it would be difficult, almost impossible, to find in any organized society, whether open or secret, a more formidable code of qualifications for such as may be anxious to enroll themselves amongst its members. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Are the qualifications which would be required of one applying, for the first time, for admission to the degree of an Apprentice more than would subsequently be required of the same person on his applying for a greater favor and a higher honor--that of being advanced to the second degree? ”

“ You are to be particularly careful, that those whom you choose be duly qualified according to law, and that no deceit be practised in obtaining temporary qualifications. You ought to enquire into their estates, and how they came by them; and if they have none, as many who stand candidates, I am told, have not, you may guess who assists them, and what hopeful services are expected from them. ”

“ What we desire is, that where the other qualifications of the candidates for appointments under Government are equal, a person who has received a good education, irrespective of the place or manner in which it may have been acquired, should be preferred to one who has not ”

“ To establish rules governing the applications of such persons, the times and places of their examinations, the subjects upon which such examinations shall be had and the investigations to be made concerning the character and qualifications of such applicants, the mode of conducting the same and the manner of keeping and preserving the records thereof, and of perpetuating the evidence of such applications, qualifications, examinations and investigations, and their result as they may think expedient. ”

“ All are subjected to the same tests, and the result is free from prejudice by personal favor or partisan influence. It secures for the position applied for the best qualifications attainable among the competing applicants. ”

“ What office is there which involves more responsibility, which requires more qualifications, and which ought, therefore, to be more honourable, than that of teaching? ”

“ There is something absolute in us which despises qualification. ”

“ A farmer, manufacturer, or trader, who requires a still larger range of ideas and knowledge, and the power of guiding and attending to a great number of various operations at once, should have three or four. A member of any profession requiring a long, accurate, and systematic mental cultivation,—a lawyer, a physician or surgeon, a clergyman of any denomination, a literary man, an artist, a public functionary (or, at all events, a member of every intellectual profession at the threshold of which there is a satisfactory examination test) ought to have five or six. ”

“ The [Pg 29] immediate business is to make the master's degree a real thing, an honest thing, to make it the sign of a higher standard than the bachelor's degree, whether the bachelor's standard be fixed high or low. Let there be some kind of standard, some kind of test. Its particular shape, whether an examination, or a disputation, or the writing of a thesis, or anything else, need not now be discussed. I ask only that there should be a test of proficiency of some kind, and that there should be the widest possible range of subjects in which proficiency may be tested. ”

“ No inquiry can be more important than that which proposes to discover the legitimate purpose and the best course of general education. All men, how much soever they may be distinguished from each other by a variety of circumstances, connections, and pursuits, have yet one common set of duties to perform; and it is in forming this character, and imparting the ability to discharge these duties, that the business of what may be called, in the most general sense, a good education, properly consists. ”

“ He engages that he possesses that reasonable degree of learning, skill, and experience which is ordinarily possessed by the professors of the same art or science, and which is ordinarily regarded by the community or by those conversant with that employment as necessary and sufficient to qualify him to engage in such business. He contracts also to employ reasonable and ordinary care and diligence in the exertion of his skill and application of his knowledge to the matter in which he is employed. ”

“ Gentlemen, a serious duty bearing alike on your professional studies and on the pursuits of your leisure moments is the due and progressive training of your intellectual powers. A serious duty. This training, no longer cribb'd. cabin'd and confin'd by the imperious requirements of examination standards, involves not only the discipline of those faculties whose powers have been cultivated, but also, and more especially of those which are weak or which have been overlooked and neglected. ”

“ The detailed regulations for the examinations for degrees should be framed with a due regard for all classes of the affiliated institutions ; and we will only observe upon this subject, that the standard for common degrees will require to be fixed with very great judgment. There are many persons who well deserve the distinction of an academical degree, as the recognition of a liberal education, who could not hope to obtain it, if the examination was as difficult as that for the senior Government scholarships ”

“ With 40 per cent, of the shining lights of our legal fraternity innocent either of professional training or of academic instruction beyond the high school, we wonder what the education of the lesser lights may be and whether really much education is essential to success. The records of the bar examination in the various states are so kept, or rather so not kept, as to make it impossible to ascertain the previous training of those admitted, so I am unable to show these facts for the rank and file of the profession. ”

“ Competitive examinations, practical in character, and fairly testing the relative capacity of applicants for the discharge of the duties of the position sought, are made compulsory, with the provision that no question shall relate to religious or political opinions. ”

“ There is a certain kind of training, the acquisition of a certain cast of thought, which are requisites for statesmen as a class, as much as his legal reading for a lawyer, or his apprenticeship for a handicraftsman. ”

“ If there existed such a thing as a really national education or a trustworthy system of general examination, education might be tested directly. In the absence of these, the nature of a person's occupation is some test. ”

“ As we glance at these classes we quickly detect that what may be called their vocations are extremely different; that each class—with the exception, perhaps, of two, the professional and the commercial, with that part of the indefinite class which is composed of persons of rank and property, and which approach each other—are as widely separated in tastes and habits and inclinations as they are in labors and works. Looking at the education of body and mind in these classes as a whole, there is certainly little enough of symmetry. ”

“ But your duty is not simply to counsel your people, but to strengthen that counsel by example—and how so— by yourselves attending technical classes, by requiring young persons under your authority to attend such classes, more especially those in Drawing and Design, by promoting the establishment of such classes in the leading schools in your neighbourhood, by offering prizes, by encouraging the reading of books and journals treating of such subjects, and by illustrating by experiment, so far as your means admit, the knowledge you have acquired. ”

“ So I say they be but sheep and calves who find assurance in a diploma. It is at best but an honorable certificate as to time and course; it cannot of itself impart knowledge. It is not to be conjured with. If the knowledge be not in the brain, the diploma is use- less; and if it be in the mind, the diploma is unnecessary. The struggle to get a diploma by cramming and cribbing is only self-deception. ”

“ Knowledge is itself a branch of human culture; that branch must itself be further advanced if all the faculties of man are to be continuously developed; hence it is the duty of the Scholar, as of every man who has chosen a particular condition of life, to strive for the advancement of knowledge, and chiefly of his own peculiar department of knowledge; it is his duty as it is the duty of every man in his own department ”

“ The Student who is penetrated with deep respect for the holiness of the Scholar's vocation, will be guided by that respect in his choice of a civil profession; and, particularly, in the province of learning, if he do not feel a profound conviction of his ability to fulfil its highest duties, he will choose a subordinate occupation, restrained from assumption by his reverence for the dignity of Knowledge. ”

“ But as it is, the diploma of a college, and the license of an appointed body of judges, must both be secured, before a young man feels that he has entered the most promising path to success in his profession. ”

“ This work is also technical, requiring knowledge gained more or less from the sciences of psychology, penology, and sociology, and skill gained from experience in the application of scientific principles. Whether they do their work as employes of the state or as members of the domestic or of the ecclesiastical institutions is not at all a matter of concern, seeing that the quality of knowledge and skill for which they are employed is the same in either case. ”