ened vacation, could be more easily watched, and it would cease
to be necessary to make the examination longer than the slow
student is capable of finishing, in order to have so much that the
dishonest one cannot depend entirely upon ‘ ‘ aids ’ ’ to get through.
You know it’s not the slow men, as a rule, who assist themselves
and each other upon examination day.
Pro. —Oh, well! you might have been spared all this talk, and
if I had not wanted your ideas I should have told you at the start
that Ido not need converting. I’m in favor of some such scheme
as you suggest. I don’t believe that it is impossible to make im
provements on old, tried ways.
Shi. —Yes, and many other members of the faculty have ex
pressed their opposition to the present system. Any instructor
would feel much injured if he were told that he couldn’t find out
what a student knows about a subject without asking questions
on paper. But still every one has examinations, and I suppose
always will have until—well, I think I’ve said enough. Good
night!
The Charge op the Light Brigade.
It was in the early part of the fifties. • I had been the special
correspondent for one of the leading London dailies for some time,
my chief work being along political lines. Europe had been quiet
for a short time, when one day came the news that Russia had
seized the Danubiau provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia. Eng
land promptly formed an alliance with France to protect Turkey
from the encroachments of the “ White Czar,” and I was ordered
off to the Crimea as war correspondent.
I had followed the varying fortunes of the army through
eleven months of the siege of Sebastopol, and now—Oct. 25, 1854
—I stand on one of the ridges of the about-to-become-famous
battle-field of Balaklava.
Our Turkish allies had been driven like chaff before the Rus
sians, and now the cavalry which had been pursuing the Turks
are coming up the ridge beneath us, which conceals our cavalry
from view. The heavy brigade in front is drawn up in two lines.
The first line consists of the Scots Greys and their old companions
in glory, the Enniskileners; the second of the Fourth Royal Irish,
of the Fifth Dragoon Guards and of the First Royal Dragoons.
The Free Lance.
balaklava.
[January,