14.708.  (Dr.  Fairbairn.)   May  I  ank  the  witnesses  whether  they  have        AeB  o»
any  idea  as  to  what  would  be  the  fittest  age  for  Secondary  Education    uwi^sraa^
to  end  and  university  education  to  begin? — (Vice-CJiancdlor  Ward.)  If  I

may  answer  that  in  the  first  instance,  1  should  point  out  that  our  university
colleges  and  our  university  are  not  quite,  I  think,  in  the  same  relation
as  Oxford  and  Cambridge  are  to  that  question.  At  Oxford  and  Cambridge,
I  am  not  quite  sure  whether  the  recent  tendency  to  move  the  age  very
far  forward  has  not  be^n  slightly  relaxed,  but  there  are  others  who  can
8peak  with  more  authority  than  myself  as  to  that.  I  think  that  the
tendency  a  few  years  ago  was  to  keep  boys  altogether  too  lon^  at  school ;
but  assuming  that  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge  the  usual  age  is  now  18  or
19  (of  which  I  am  not  quite  sure),  I  nhould  say  that  we  must  reckon  at
cur  colleges  17  or  18  as  the  best  age — ^that  we  cannot  expect  university
•  education  to  be  largely  taken  part  in  in  the  great  northern  centres,  anless
we  generally  regard  17  or  lo  as  a  suitable  age  for  beginning  university
work.  My  experience  of  man^  years  has  brought  me  to  think  that.  I
should  be  glad  to  work  up  to  a  limit  of  17  or  18.  I  should  not,  at  present,
wish  to  change  our  limit  at  Oweus  College  of  16,  for  we  have  a  con-
siderable number  of  very  promising  lads  ;  but  I  should  like  to  regard  17  or
18  as  the  probable  limit  of  the  more  immediate  future.  (PrincipcU  Bendall!)  -
I  think  that  the  question  hardly  admits  of  a  single  answer,  because
difference  of  curriculum  requires  different  ages.  On  the  whole,  I  think,
that  those  entering  for  science  curricula  come,  and  probably  rightly,  a
little  earlier  than  those  entering  for  arts,  and  so  they  can  make  their
curricula  continuous  in  the  laboratory  in  which  they  nave  begun  their
courses  of  lectures.  Seventeen  would  seem  about  the  appropriate  age  for
them.  As  regards  women  students,  I  should  say  that  I  prefer  their  coming
at  a  rather  later  period  than  men  students,  and  they  do  as  a  matter  of
fact ;  I  think  that  common  sense  has  guided  them  rightly.  Hot  many
ladies  join  the  colleep  under  18  years  of  age.
