If the review of the Locals which was attempted in the last chapter is extended to a more general critique of examinations, it is natural to begin with the universities, since both the Civil Service and the schools had very close links with them. The school examinations had by 1900 been controlled by the universities for over forty years. The Civil Service was anxious to acquire for its higher posts men who had won distinction in university tests. By 1900 the universities, Oxford and Cambridge in particular, the public administration and the secondary schools formed a whole of closely interrelated parts, each of which sharply reacted to changes in the others. The point was clearly made at Cambridge in the nineties when the university sent a memorial to government asking for legislation on secondary education. Some opposition to this course was expressed on the ground that secondary education was not the university's business. The Council of the Senate urged on the contrary that: ‘Whatever tends to increase or diminish the efficiency of the work in Secondary Schools is certain to react favourably or unfavourably, as the case may be, upon the universities themselves. It therefore seems fitting that the university should not hesitate to take action with the object of doing what lies in its power to promote such efficiency.’

Just as the secondary schools had improved after the reports of the Taunton and Clarendon Commissions and standards had risen in the Civil Service during the same period, so Oxford and Cambridge had made great strides.