GCSE results came out on 21 August. This volume of exam regulations from the Queen Isabel II College of the Humanities in Cadiz in 1836 might contribute to the debate whether standards in education have been falling ever since the Queen of Sheba tested Solomon with hard questions in I Kings 10:1.

 
Exámen público á que se presentan los alumnos del Colegio de Humanidades de Isabel II. de esta ciudad de Cádiz, dirigidos por el Sr. D. José Villaverde y Rey ... En los dias 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21 y 22 [de setiembre], dando principio á las once de la mañana. (Cádiz: en la Imprenta de la Viuda e Hijo de Bosch, 1836(. British Library 1444.e.8(17)

The Colegio de Humanidades was founded by the liberal goverment in 1835 to reform the curriculum, ‘which may be compared to a ruinous gothic edifice, ill repaired and patched with the architecture of Churriguera’.

There are three levels: the first graders must have been about 10 years old, and the top class were around 16-18.

Exams were conducted orally, before an audience of parents.

For reading, the pupils read from Vallejo’s primer (first grade) or Fleury’s Catechism (second) or the fables of Iriarte (third; they are still read in Spanish schools today); for the fourth and fifth levels the reading matter is not prescribed.

In calligraphy they are tested in Spanish character and English character.

In Latin the bottom class (clase ínfima) do declension and conjugation; by the time they get to the top class they are called on to compose sentences, translate Cicero’s letters and Nepos’s lives into Spanish, and translate from Spanish to Latin.

The highest level of Latin, called Humanities, was taught by ‘don Pedro O’Crouley’, presumably an Irish Catholic exile. Here the prescribed authors are Sallust, Livy, Cicero (speeches), Terence, epigrams of Catullus and Martial (suitably censored, one trusts), Tibullus and Ovid, and the eclogues and Aeneid of Virgil ‘They shall make a historical and mythological analysis, an exercise in prosody on different metres, and write pieces in Latin in accordance with the rules of good taste’.

Some named star pupils will present a composition in Spanish translated from Latin authors, and will ‘dispute’ on each other’s work. Fewer boys took Greek.

Philosophy had fewer takers too, covering psychology, general grammar, logic, ‘crítica’ and transcendental metaphysics.

There were separate exams in Maths, Algebra, Geometry and plane trigonometry; this last ‘includes using and combining the principal formulae in trigonometry, the construction of tables and the resolution of triangles in general. By practical geometry problems such as measuring distances and heights (accessible and inaccessible), raising plans … and analysing any algebraic formula manifesting the corresponding geometrical constuction, and vice-versa any geometrical problem that might be set shall be placed in equation’.

Cosmography includes the globe and its circles, determining longitude, latitude; maps and projections, the division of stars and and exposition of the celestial phenomena, and the rotation and revolution of the planets.

Business studies (‘Comercio’) includes a comparison of single- and double-entry book-keeping; sending out goods either on one’s own account or another’s; discounts on letters and renewal of IOUs; buying land; when one forms a company; how to make a balance sheet.

Texts in French were passages from Fénélon’s Telemaque and Moliere’s Ecole des maris. In English (taught by don Guillermo Macpherson) they recite verse and act out scenes from ‘los selectos gramáticos ingleses’, which I trust is a typo for ‘dramáticos’, the select English dramatists.

In music the boys will perform ‘Valzer para piano, de Motzan’ and on the violin ‘Di tanti palpiti’.

In dance they are tested in ‘rigodon, contradanza española y vals’.

In 1836 there was no riding exam, for want of space.

Barry Taylor, Curator Hispanic studies

References:

María del Carmen Simón Palmer, ‘Notas bibliográficas sobre programas de exámenes públicos celebrados en Madrid de 1632 a 1844’,  Anales del Instituto de Estudios Madrileños, 8 (1972), 501-17.

Flores de Arenas, Francisco. Oracion inaugural ... en la apertura de estudios del Colegio de Humanidades de Isabel II … (Cádiz, 1835). 1444.e.8.(16.)

The Rigaudon or Rigadon; one of the dances tested by the college. From Raoul Auger Feuillet, Recueil de dances (Paris, 1709). 1570/798.(3.)