SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume C, Issue 11750, 30 November 1898, Page 4

SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS.

The last month of the year will bring round the usual crop of examinations, and with them the usual examiners complaints. Not long ago a Select Committee of the Melbourne University took the trouble to systematise the criticisms made successively during the last four or five years. We need hardly draw attention to the fact that matriculation ought to servo as a fair tost of the work done by the secondary and the high class private schools. The most frequent complaint is that of bad English among candidates. We are void of “ serious grammatical blunders,” “ gross errors in the construction of sentences, ■ absurd mistakes in inflection and spelling,” “ defective orthography,” intolerable illegibility," “want of regard for the roles of English composition,” and various other faults which are caused as often by hast© as by ignorance. Now, these remarks apply to New Zealand scholars as much as to Australian, and to school work as well as to matriculation. The committee suggested as a remedy a new preliminary examination, in which special importance should bo attached to spelling', analysis, liaising and dictation. We are not sure that this rather homeopathic remedy would go to the root of the malady. It does not seem to have occurred to the committee that the fault lies just as much with the; examiners as with either the pupils or the teachers. We are afraid that not more than 50 per cent of the pupils make uste of either intelligence or ' common-efonse in answering questions. | flow can they? Many of thpm h/wo no j idea that intelligence or common-sense is j expected of them. Their great object is to cram as much information on to their paper as it will contain; to write as much as possible with tiro smallest possible expenditure uf thought, merely as an exercise of memory. This is the result of setting a long string of questions which it is well-nigh impossible to answer satisfactorily in the given time. A thoughtful person is sometimes completsly at a loss in these feats of j mental athletics where the prize is the re- ; ward solely of speed. Frequent examinations, as at present conducted, have a tendency to encourage reckless hurry, with all . its attendant faults of haphazard answers, j illegible handwriting, degenerating into a , mere shapeless scrawl, slips an grammar, I end a want of grasp and comprehension. Not that w© by any means undervalue the power of clear and rapid thought and expression, but wo cannot expect the young to possess them; and before speed qomes | correctness. To bo forced to hurry is.fatal

to beginners. Let them first'Team howto write well; quickness should come in-after; years from constant practice. Lrt£k(, or,, perhaps, nothing, can be dona by indi-. vidual sdrool teaclnars and examiners. The inspector and the university examiner* -must supply the model for all scnools and-collcges from the highest grade downward. Othcr-i wise, a pupil accustomed to a more rational system of questioning might be actually] worse off in the entrance 'examination, than, 1 one used to scrambling through from' his earliest years. Would it not be passible* to make pupils in every cx:iiiiin-atar>n."ondcr-stand that legibility of handwriting, correct' spelling and decent grammar wore abso-i lutely indispensable, and nob only in "wlmt wo know as “ English,” but also ia history] and in translations from other languages?! Would not this plan be more'"useful thanj attaching any extra importance to:- elabo-ii rate parsing and analysis? Since the object of teaching children English l is- to-en-i able them to express themselves,-dearly, .it ■ ' is even probable that the best tiest-of their! capabilities would be simply to .tot them' subjects to write on. If their--own faults' were constantly and carefully correctedtyearj by-year, and’ they acquired fluency by -con- 1 stan* practice, surely the formal, grammar could be reduced to a minimum. In short, our-suggested 1 reforms would hardly be-onl the--lines recommended by the Melbourne University, hnt.would.ra.tlierb&m the.<iirsction of shorter papers, and (with all. dna, deference to- the-examinere)' questions: ratimr more-dearly expressed than those.- we bavai sometime* seen. Above all, more import- 1 ancn-mrglit.b&-.ei3tadiied' to- the--composition; itaßlf„«uid the pupil should -dearly under-: stand.that-no-amounb-of. infoniustitn,-.w-oirid-vtxmdar a -slovenly -style. Inesqme- of -'the' laghCT^gnadf^-of - nniveirihy ■ subjecte in-whidi weniught tokft.su bint . from; the-Germans, and.-count leastJjalfi - or' ; tbonghfe=ern-| bodiedrin-essay’‘form. Until, something-- of; the -kind 'is'-dona have,, year byi year, tbs ‘ old--,;stnry'ef ‘i2legiliility,, wanti of camj)reh®nsion,,., bad. spelEngi andb-fanliyi-«mngEmeat. 1 Meanwhile, .it -da very dittlevuseefor --examinfirsato-ciitidsrsdhs! results-of a-.syst&mj -they hiuzar.-daucynnore: than anyoneidsewtoßicreate.