MORE EXAMINATION ANSWERS.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8331, 6 April 1889, Page 5

MORE EXAMINATION ANSWERS.

Commenting on its wonderful list of examination paper blunders collected in American State schools, the New York Tribune lays all the blame on cram and "parrot learning." This aeems to us hardly fair. If all childred in the schools blundered equally, showen the same propensity to give grotesque answers to questions put iv examination, we might justly infer that the teaching is uniformly bad. But in all likelihood most of the children come out fairly well under examination. Iv every school ; theie are drones and dullards, and it ia the drones and dullards who make sport for examiners. The mistake, as I conceive it, lies in trying to hammer booklearning into heads ia wiiicli naturo had made no provision for its reception. Consider, for example, tho evidences of impenetrability afforded hy the following answers to questions on arithmetic ; — Substraotion is the minuend and the substracted end. When there are equal numbers it ia called mullepliaation, A partial product ia one of the things you multiply with. A quotient is a prime faster and is always a number or some part of a number. A composite nn.m.bes is Jusi the same as a prime faoler,' Brokerage is the allowance for the brakerago and leekerage of bottles. Insurance ia when you die or burn up your money the insurance oflice piys you for it. Exchange in Europe, is when you go through London, Paris, and places. When you cschanga' toontiy 1 all you have to do Vi td 'get tho right change. The payment of a note on the back is called an enforcement. Accurate interest is according to the number; of dates, the days, and the interest. principal is not y&luablp lijio interest and is-riever' paid. Tho rule for proportion is to multiply it by all the terms, If there are no units in a number you havo to lill it up with all zsros. Units of tny order are expressed by writing in the place of the order. A pole tux is laid on the top of your hend, • i 'i i You can find a hypnthosis if you havo n biso perpendicular. When you multiply two nnmbers together they h>d ought to b'e'just erjua.!, • -' " ■ "■ "• • ll > • Tfcp' underwriters arp the *W parties. : A tax on a man is called a poll tax ! when he has not any property, No man will live long' enough to be ' ensured unless he has great expectation : of life. l Tt would bo rash to assume tb.at the authorq ' of" tli'esp absurdities' were naitirrf foels or' born idiots', possibly they are merely the victims of gross ignorance in their elders and bttters — the ignorance that supposes education to be synonytnou.3 w 'th tjaolf-learnin". ' Taught to wcsk with their hands, the hapless drones and dullards of our State ' school systems .might make good mechanics and enjoy some measure of self-respaot. 'fTh) inability of a lurep proportion of teachers and school textbook writers • to put themselves on the children's level ' in constructing their explanations ia one . of. the moat fruitful 'sources of confusion." So says the Tribune, and its nitnes's is true, A liat of i* given which tiie pupils haye learned by rote and which, 'presumably, the teachers have explained. How efficient the explanation, may be inferred from suph answers a.s these ; " Doxology, dropay in the head ;" "frantic, something up in the garret ; " " \ phenix ia one who sifts ashas; " "Alkalie U aoids mixed up ;" " Arebenrsal is what they have at a funeral." In the following specimens it is amusing to trace the confusion of ideas in the examinee's poor noddle : — " Evangelist, one who Bpealjs from his stomach" — (is thinking of a ventrilocjuist). ■ "Sonambullafc is a man that talks when you don't know where he is '.' — (ventriloquist, again, no doubt). " Jronieal, something very liard '' — (from ii'on, of course). " Tocsin, something to do with getting diunk "— (" intoxication "). lk Monastery, a place for monsters " — (intuition this, and native genius). "Termagant,' a kind of goose"-— (ptarmigan?). f Tautonip,_ a very strong sort of spring medicine "—(merely a mistake for ''tonic") "Expostulation is to have the small pox"— (has heard, apparently, of "pustules"). " A turbot is a kind of rhetorical style "—(from confusion with " a turgid style '*■). •■ In the Bame way we may explain the information that "a pully is a sort of chicken," and that " a raffle is a sort of gun." Unconscious sarcasm lurks \n the two following definitions :•—

Ventilation is letting in contaminated air. An incendiary is when you go round preaching and singing hymns. Amongst military and historical and geographical items of interest are the following: The Crusades were millinery 'expeditions undertaken by the Christians. The soldiers marched down the hill pantaloon after paotaloon.— (Query : Platoon after platoou). Joan of Arc was rather pious and very gentnel. Cromwell owed hia elevation to his ascent to greatness, and because he was often in the senate and in the field o£ domestic retirement. The interior of Africa is principally J us«d for'nirposes of exploration. Africa has no interior, and you can't explore it. The climate of a country is trading ivilh other countries. Domestic commerce is fishing. Foreign commerce is fiahing with a pole. The most scandalous answer in the whole batch, according to the Tribune, 13 this : "The United States is most as big as England." Says the editor : " The boys and girls who are getting the kind of educa ion here illmtrated are charged with the graat responsibility of maintaining the rupublican form of government. But what is to be thought of the value of a common school system where a scholar solemnly sets down that ' the United States is moat as big as England ' ? " Most likely the a'lthor of this treasonable opinion waa a recent importation from the old country. No native American would blunder in that direction.