CLEVER CHILDREN.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 288, 5 December 1925, Page 18

CLEVER CHILDREN.

— -■ i SCHOLARSHIP EXAMS. ! TESTING TIME IN AUCKLAND. OVER 1500 CANDIDATES. The hopes of hundreds of parents who have smart children charged with the destiny of carrying the family name into the high places of the nation have'been centred for the past few days; on the fateful exams, which may open the gates to the university and. the learned professions, or give entrance to the public service. Since Wednesday of last week 601 young folk have sat at the Scots' Hall and the Orange Hall for Public Service entrance and intermediate (senior free place) certificates, and I for senior national scholarships.' Of I these 317 were boys, and 284 girte. Yesterday 511 boys and 355 girls at the same halls were striving for junior national scholarships. Starting next Tuesday, another batch of students, consisting of secondary school pupils and of young people from the various professions, will go up for their matriculation certificates. The candidates which are engaged to-day arc:— Boys. Girls. Public Service entrance .. 13.$ 4S ■Senior National schol. . . 120 74 Intermediate -44 133 Cream of the Schools. The candidates for these examinations represent the cream of the. primary and secondary schools, with ■ a sprinkling of others who may have missed, or neglected, early .opportunities, and are repairing the fault by turning back to ' get their matriculation certificate, which means so much : on the way towards advancement in the professions. But in the bulk they are the bright'youngsters lof the community. Much has been made at intervals of -the false ■ values ; ; of examinations on the ground" that' the candidates are subject to distractions attendant on sitting at some place strange- to them, "and perhaps , , beingdesigned for other uses, not sufficiently remote from the sounds of the external passing life of the city. This point of view probably arises in part from the fact that scholarship is historically " 'associated with the peace of the cloister, and in part it is the view rather of the anxious parent than of the care-free youth. In the Scots' Hall and the Orange Hall the candidates, so far as might be gleaned from a glimpse in the . doorway, have, .been particularly well catered for. Seated at individual .desks spaced so that none might be ■worried by personal contact, with his '/'neighbour, and -with eoft-footed super•'visors in attendance, the candidates certainly have 'the school atmosphere to which they are accustomed, plus an almost cloistral silence. Not Worried By "Nerves," ' -, Closed street doors and outside door' attendants guard against the invasion of distracting noises and visitors from the outside world, while the inner rooms are both light and airy. . There are no doubt a few highly strung candidates; obsessed by an ' overpowering sense of the importance of. the occasion,- but a "Star" representative who happened to .get.along to tlie Scots Hall just before the junior national exam, candidates went into session found the ..cniet-super-visor .the most"nervy" .person there. ' ;The j candidates; lads from, the primary, schools, were making a school holiday , of the occasion. They were skylarking down; the alleyways and climbing noisily around the balconies, and the supervisor had to rally his deputies and drill into the lads a sense of their responsibility in the matter of care of the building and of their limbs. Though they we.re readily.,, amenable to his authority when he let them know he was there, and why, it" was'perfectly obvious the Scots Hall was no strange place to ■ them by the time they had settled down for work; they had explored.it from roof to basement. . . -, Then, 'too, there came an illuminating incident under the notice of one if the supervisors between the morning and afternoon session. It was just' before the afternoon's work was taken up, and the supervisor, accustomed to the candi-, dates grouping together to discuss the morning's papers, or sitting singly apart in the corridor "swotting" in anticipation of the later .papers', got quite a shock to come across several of the young candidates sitting in a corridor immersed in the humourb of "Comic Cuts." Obviously the younger generation has a sure instinct for the psychology of mental relaxation. On the other hand, a lad of larger growth who was down to sit for his matriculation exam, next Tuesday, was so obsessed by the necessity of being there on time that he wae found by ,a supervisor sitting at a front desk in the hall among the small boys up for the public service exam, last Wednesday, having got there a week beforehand in ■ his anxiety not to "miss the bus." ' The number of candidates that sat last week, together with those who are taking the exams, this week, make a total of 1407, and there is a list lor next week's matriculation exams, at the various secondary schools, as well as at Scots Hall i and the Orange Hall, which will brin~ the ' total close to 2000. Mr. R. L. Baxter is dnef supervisor for the boys at the former place, while Mr. A. F." Morton is at the head of the supervisors a,t the latter hall, where the girls are sitting. In one or two of the classes it has been necessary, on account of the large number of girl candidates, to send some of the female candidates under supervision to the Scots Hall and to the science room at the University. The matriculation exams, will be under the supervision of the Rev. P. S. Smallfield.