MATRICULATION EXAMINATION.

Evening Star, Issue 18852, 29 January 1925, Page 4

MATRICULATION EXAMINATION.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —-I read with great interest and approval ‘Engineer’s’ letter. As he says, the present system of the preliminary engineering examination is very disheartening to young aspirants for the profession. I will cite a case in point, I have a son who spent two years in the Otago Boys’ High School, tk then secured employment, and attended the yearly course at the Dunedin Technical School, going to lessons five nights out of the seven. By dint of hard work and study, ho secured a partial pass in matriculation, but failed in the language French, in the third year. This year he studied for the language again, but failed. This experience seems to bear out the contention of “Engineer” that tho study of languages is not in harmony with co-study of purely engineering subjects. Tho result of this failure, in the language means another year of “ swat ” in French, the employment of a coach, nnd a consequent delay in attaining the entrance to the University to pursue the study of engineering. And, as "Engineer” points out, it is very hard on lads who have to work hard eight hours a day, and who have necessarily to study hard and attend Hasses all their available time between ceasing work and the hours of rest. In the case I have quoted oven the hours which are usually devoted to rest have very often been encroached upon.

A point to remember is that in these expensive times two years at a secondary school is tho utmost that a great many parents can afford to let their boys have. So why place obstacles in tho way of really hard triers, who find the language test ’such a terrible hurdle? If higher mathematics or trigonometry was substituted in tho place of the language test, or some other seieniilie subject in keepii% with the engineering course, it would he o-rcat encouragement to these lads who 'irv so hard, and who, one might say, almost have their ambition killed by this, to them, almost insuperable harrier to an entrance into the higher branches of ■engineering knowledge. This insistence on the language lining retained was shown in tbe ease of the preliminary accountants 1 examination to he totally unnecessary. On what principle should it he required in the case of engineering students? —! am, o tc., " Layman. January 28.