Deanery Bristol | 16 Aug.
My dear Sir,
I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your returns of the examination.1 Will you have the kindness to send me an account of the expenses you have incurred in respect to the additional questions.
I heartily concur in your opinion that Physical Science is most unjustly neglected in the education of this country. In fact this examination affords remarkable evidence of the disproportionate place assigned to classical literature.2 All the Examiners lament the neglect of their respective subjects except the Classical examiners.3
Yours my dear Sir | truly | H. Moseley.
RI MS JT/1/3/896
LT Typescript Only
your returns of the examination: Tyndall’s marks for the papers on ‘Natural Sciences’ examination sat on 9 August as part of the Examination for Appointments in the Royal Artillery and Engineers.
classical literature: Of the 171 candidates, 152 sat the Latin papers and 102 were examined in Greek. All candidates sat the Pure Mathematics exams. 137 took English Composition and 137 French. By contrast 41 took Natural Sciences and 22 Moral Sciences.
the Classical examiners: The examiners in Latin and Greek were Robert William Browne, George Butler and Goldwin Smith. Two of them stated that ‘they were not prepared to find among them [the candidates] so many good classical scholars, and one of them, whose experience gives great weight to his opinion, considers the candidates selected to be generally young men of distinguished ability’ (Report on the Examination for Appointments in the Royal Artillery and Engineers, Held at King’s College, London, on the First of August, 1855 (London: Harrison, 1855), p. 18).
Please cite as “Tyndall1130,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on