The role of argumentation in British education: an historical glimpse

Recently I was surprised by the description that Niall Ferguson makes of the (very competitive) exams that were proposed to candidates for the Indian Civil Service (the administration of the British colonies). I do not have the intention to discuss imperialism here. Ferguson wrote a brilliant essay about the British empire (Empire: How Britain made the modern world, Penguin, 2003),which I am going to cite (pp. 185-186).

I was impressed by some of the questions that candidates were asked in 1859 for their exams. The historical questions are interesting: "Enumerate the chief Colonies of England, and state how and when she acquired each of them", or "Name the successive Governors-General of British India as far as 1830, giving the dates of their Governments, and a brief summary of the main Indian transactions under each" (!). But together with these questions, the "Logic and Mental Philosophy paper" includes this one: "Classify Fallacies".

Really, I am impressed. The British administrators/governors of the colonies were asked to know some fundamentals of argumentation. I do not want to draw conclusions about British colonies, but it is an interesting clue to what the educational requirements were for a man who should work in an institutional domain.