Pollman

Even the wretched pollmen cannot be expected to unravel the quirks and catches in their elementary papers with any degree of credit, unless they have been privately trained for the purpose.

Nevertheless, it is tolerably clear, from various parts of their Report, that while they believe the best Harrow or Rugby boy to be equal to the picked scholars of their own schools, they are persuaded that the average Harrow or Rugby boy—one, for example, who goes from the fifth form to be a pollman at Cambridge or an officer in the army—knows less, and has received less intellectual training and intellectual stimulus, than a French boy of the same age.

It is related of some Cambridge poll-man that he was once so ill-advised as to desert a private tutor.