SCHOOL PRIZES.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 312, 26 September 1908, Page 14

SCHOOL PRIZES.

<• h'sfc, ftf biblia abiblia (says the tpjigow Herald ") is fairly comproliciisivc, otiVUnyona'who is ablo to scan a shelf filled the fevidonces of his juvonilo industry jnay Da pardoned if lio makes an addition by giving school prizes a place immediately after " books that no gentleman's library should be without." A fow bright exceptions may be m&do, but at least 50 per cent, i "vuill bo -iound richly deserving of tho bad t -lominepce. Consequently, Mr. A. W. Pollard's remaps on school prizes in tho " Bibliophile" will havo many a sympathetic . . reader. It is quite unnecessary to give his ..' Jist of uninteresting volumes in full morocco. 13miles's " Self-Help " r heads it; the WW J» inferred by each man from jiis osai school trophies. The titles may vary, ■of •course, but the grievance is always the J-same. Mr. Pollard feels aggrieved every .time ho looks at "The Voyage of the Fox" . ■ and "Lo Blocus." A school friend of tho writer's for, two successivo years received "The Story of John G. Paton," tho third .vcar it was varied by "Maekay of Uganda," but <i year later "John G. Paton," as illprinted and as abominably well bound as ' over, reappeared as the reward of a labori- >, ous. session. It may be added that tho recipient is now' an austere biologist, with imperfect religious 'sympathies. Yet the rcpe- <• tition was really of little moment, for aftor all every unreadablo book is the same unt readable book, r Mr. Pollard goes op to make two sugges- ; j'uoiis fpr amendment. The sad condition of tho school prize is the outcome of a compromise hotiveeh the dignity of tho school '(whence the fatal duralinity of the binding) and a maladroit endeavour to provide literature which a boy will read. Now all compromises in literature are detestable. His first suggestion therefore is that a book that is intended for immediato reading be left in , its natural , cloth binding. A cloth-bound book finds its proper destination with com- !! parativo ease. In tho second place, there are hooks of reference of permanent value, Xiddoll and Scott, for example, which might be more generally used as prizes. Let them bo bound in full morocco by all means, for a Liddell and Scott in cloth is a weariness to the flesh and an abomination to tho eye. I Until Mr. Pollard's principles of iprize-giv-ing aro adopted, the prize-winner will continue to experience the emotions of . a Frankenstein everytime he enters his library.