The dominant epistemology which characterised state schooling by the beginning of the twentieth century combined the trilogy of pedagogy, curriculum and evaluation. The last of the pieces in the trilogy was the establishment of university examination boards and here the side-effects on curriculum were to be both pervasive and longlasting. As we have seen, the classroom system inaugurated a world of timetables and compartmentalised lessons - the curriculum manifestation of this systematic change was the school subject. If "class and curriculum" entered educational discourse when schooling was transformed into a mass activity "classroom system and school subject" were linked at the stage at which that mass activity became a state-subsidised system. And in spite of the many alternative ways of conceptualising and organising curriculum the convention of the subject retains its supremacy. In the modern era we are essentially dealing with the curriculum as subject.

Whilst this pattern was inaugurated in the 1850s it was established on the present footing with the definition of the Secondary Regulations in 1904 which list the main subjects followed by the establishment of a subject-based "School Certificate" in 1917. From this date curriculum conflict began to resemble the existing situation in focusing on the definition and evaluation of examinable knowledge. Hence the School Certificate subjects rapidly became the overriding concern of grammar schools and the academic subjects it examined soon established ascendancy on these 'schools' timetables. In 1941 Norwood reported that:

a certain sameness in the curriculum of schools resulted from the double necessity of finding a place for the many subjects competing for time in the curriculum and the need to teach these subjects in such a way and to such a standard as will ensure success in the School Certificate examination.

The normative character of the system is apparent and as a result of 'these necessities' the curriculum had 'settled down into an uneasy equilibrium, the demands of specialists and subjects being easily adjusted and compensated'.(10) The extent to which university examination boards thereby influenced the curriculum through examination subjects is evident. The academic subject centred curriculum was in fact strengthened in the period following the 1944 Education Act. In 1951 the introduction of the General Certificate of Education allowed subjects to be taken separately at 'O' level (in the School Certificate blocks of 'main' subjects had to be passed); and the introduction of Advanced level increased subject specialisation and enhanced the link between 'academic' examinations and university 'disciplines'. The academic subjects which dominated 'O' and especially 'A' level examinations were then closely linked to university definitions; but even more crucially they were linked to patterns of resource allocation. Academic 'subjects' claiming close connections to university 'disciplines' were for the 'able' students. From the beginning it was assumed that such students required "more staff, more highly paid staff and more money for equipment and books".(11) The crucial and sustained link between 'academic' subjects and preferential resources and status was therefore established.

But if this system was predominant with regard to staffing and resources in grammar schools, the implications for the other schools (and styles of curriculum) should not be forgotten. Echoing Taunton Norwood had discovered that schooling had "thrown up certain groups each of which can and must be treated in a way appropriate to itself". This time the social and class basis of differentiation remained the same but for the rationale and mechanism for differentiation was significantly different. Now the emphasis was on different "mentalities" each recognising a different curriculum. Firstly the pupil who is interested in learning for its own sake, who can grasp an argument or follow a piece of connected reasoning. Such pupils "educated by the curriculum commonly associated with grammar schools have entered the 1 learned professions or have taken up higher administrative or business posts!' The second group whose interests lie in the field of applied science or applied arts were to go to technical schools (which never developed very far). Thirdly the pupils who deal "more easily with concrete things than with ideas". The curriculum would "make a direct appeal to interests, which it would awaken by practical touch with affairs". A practical curriculum then for a manual occupational future.