I MATRICULATION EXAMINATION

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 19 December 1935, Page 9

I MATRICULATION EXAMINATION

1 •/' t the .ENGLISH PAPER . sV [B* Telegraph —Preni* A»*o«iutinnl ;: : : ; QIIRISTCHURCH;.I7th December. (Criticism of. the'reply by Dr. Uttley, rector of £sjilhland Boys’ High .School, lojffiis defence of the matriculation English paper was . made by the examiner, Professor Sinclaire to-day. •WH now appears that Dr. Uttley’s complaint that the matriculation English paper contained some .questions which would cause difficulty to a university graduate is to be taken in a 1 spit’ and flexible sense,"said Professor Siijdaire. “By: some questions he means a f'.jpart of one ‘ question (which allowed the candidate.a certain range-of choice) and ' HW goes- on •• to ■ eke out" his objection by accusing me of wrong or misleading use of italics in another question. Dr. XJttley’s interpretation of the word ‘some’ will bring relief to those who are tryingihardtfto think nobly of university graduates. S' welcome; it for the light 'it throws on my critic’s objection to a question whose aim was to test pandidates ip their knowledge of the ex-

act' meaning of certain common words. • "Such knowledge Dr. Uttley depreciates as ‘textual’ and not ‘inspirational.’ Well, I am not myself an inspirationalist, because I have, never.been able to discover anv other road to the apprehension of an author’s spirit than through an accurate understanding of the letter. What. Dr. Uttley calls ‘inspirational’ I am afraid I should call by the less imposing name of ‘shoddy.’ The inspirational method may be a good prescrip- ’ tion for finding out moonshine. For my own part I prefer the method implied in the luminous words of St. Paul: ‘I will ’ sink with the spirit and I will sing „ witfi the understanding also.’ “I see, however, that what may be " called the higher inspirationalism. as advocated by my critic, does unbend to the extent of allowing a teacher to explain to his pupils an unfamiliar word or * phrase. The sin lies in expecting the a pupil to remember the explanation a few v weeks or months later I his is the a damnable heresy of textualism. „ “Strangely enough, when he comes to . criticise my use of italics, Dr. Uttley i himself seems to lapse into this heresy. ‘ Being myself a textualist—i.e., a peri son who likes to know the meaning of ' what he reads—l should not object to n this criticism if it happened to he well t considered If Dr. Uttley will take the trouble to read again the question lie

has criticised, either he will see what I mean or else I cannot help- him. However, since my perfectly correct and consistent use of italics has not puzzled any of the candidates whose answers 1 have so far read, I admit, if it would puzzle even Dr. Uttley’s hypothetical graduate, in a long experience as examiner I have noticed that the perplexities of most candidates arise from a single source, namely, ignorance. “This is my last word. Dr. Uttley presumably knows that nty paper was submitted to the University Board of Moderators and approved by them. If he had objections to make, his proper course was to make them to the board.”