SOME EXAMINATION PAPERS

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1509, 31 January 1901, Page 19

SOME EXAMINATION PAPERS

The hoys whose answers are here recorded' have been pupils of the different great public schools; and these examples have been culled from School and Army |>apers, and some also from University entrance examinations: On one occasion the English Constitution -was described thus: —“The English Constitution is a very comprehensive oltyile of governing, founded on the in_ numerable laws of England- In Early Briton times there were no laws,, but people walked about naked, and painted blew (sic) all over the wode (sic). In Saxon times there was not above from six to a dozen laws altogether, wherefore there were not any lawyers needed. Bu)t now there are so many laws that men have to learn them for a business. The main body of people could never find time to learn all the laws of Again, “What is a Limited Monarchy ? ’ “A limited monarchy is a government by a monarch, who in case of bankruptcy would not be responsible for the entire national debt. In private life you have itjhe same thing with a limited liability company.” What is a Heretic? . A heretic is one who never would believe rwhat he was told, but only after seeing lit and hearing it with his own eyes. The boy who wrote the next was' a bit mixed, and he had thought. The Court of Chancery is called this, because they take care of property there on the chance of an owner turning up.” Again “The whip with the six strings was bow the idle pupils were punished in the cruel days of the Norman, times.’ There is something sympathetic about that! . . Here is a rigorous analysis of an important period of history, with circumstantial and original details of the facts! —“Charles I. had his own notions ef how to be a king. He did not think common Englishmen’s idea was much of a king at all. He said they wanted * to tell him what a king is. But he said l they must leave it to him to show them rather. This angered people. So Cardinal Wolseley, Sir Isaac Newton, Sir George Wombwell. and General Lesley had him tried by the Inns of Court for exceeding himself, and put to death m the presence of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London, where the Aquarium' now stands.” “Sir George Wombwell” is the muddled echo of Oliver’s name! Another youthful philosopher disposes thus of the first of the Stuarts : —James I. had so much learning that he could not make any use of it. In fact he had been crammed by Scottish tutors. He would have learned more wisdom at an English public School where learning is kept in its own place and not allowed to run wild.” This sounds like the distortion of some master’s half understood remark. Another youth has added this appendix to the greatest Saxon reign : “The provisions of Oxford were the * money banked by Alfred, the good and great King of England, to feed thei students when he first built the college. Formerly there was hardly any Latin north of the Thames.” The following answer is in the manner of Tom Hood, but quite serious:—“The Diet of Worms is the grubs fed on by

the blackbirds and thrushes, that will eat up the drops and fruit if they live longer. It is not very wise .of a gar_ d'ener, when he shoots the birds and smashes their nests and eggs.” That boy had been well taught in some things, but not in history. He who produced the following might reasonably claim copyright for it: —“A Papal Bull gave you the alternative (sic) of obedience or of being, excommunicated from the priviliges of the Church. It is a Bull, with reference te the horns of a Dilemma. So an Irish Bull is a choice—you may believe it, or you: may not believe it.” This is definite-—and new :---“The Five Mile Act was passed by Queen Victoria, to prevent loafing and drunkenness in public-houses. People must ~ prove that they have travelled five miles before they would be supplied with beer and spirits. This made people ashamed to get so drunk as before.” Who were the Pilgrim Fathers?—“The Pilgrim Fathers were the parents of the young men who took journeys to thel Holy Land in the Crusades. They had to give an allowance to the godly sons while they were away in the Bast. But they never grudged it, because it was an honour to be a pilgrim’s father/’

Here is an ideal definition of an interjection : —“An interjection is a shout or scream raised by a person too surprised or pained or frightened to make a sentence .with his thoughts. It is not quite a human language. The lower animals say nothing else but interjections. Accordingly ill-natured and cross people by their interjections come very near to beasts.” Now hear youth on summer:—“Summer, of course, is a very pleasant season, when it is a good summer, and one has a country place to live in, near the seaside, or a nice river. Then to feel its niceness you must not be burdened with work. Work is double hard in summer, indeed three times harder, It has its own hardness—that is one. Then there is the fatigueness of the heat of the air and of the broiling sun—that is two. Besides nobody, unless a scorcher on his cycle, wants to

bustle or fag in summer—that is three. The games are quite enough for a schoolboy in summer, I can tell you. If a boy plays three matches of cricket, or rows hard in the river thrice a week in the afternoons of the half-holidays, he is not in it much for writing oh reading stuff for the rest of bis time. At our school we had" three halt-holidays that way every week in summer. Books were a disgust after the hard goes at the sports, and asleep or a 100 l was more one’s due. Winter is many ways jollier. Neither wtork nor play wearies half so much then. My own certain opinion is that summer has nothing ,equal to a good skait (sic) or a hearty snowball fight. How one can eait and enjoy himself in dear old winter!”

In this explanation of the tides schoolboy and science primer struggle for the mastery: —“The tides are a fight be_ tween the earth and the moon. All water tends toward the moon, because there is no water in the moon, and nature abhors a vacuum. Gravitation at the earth keeps the water from rising all the way to the moon. I forget whether the sun join® in this fight.” Buit the next boy is a- real wit : —FA vacuum is nothing shut up in a box. They have a way of pumping out the air. When all the air and everything else is shut out, naturally they are able to shut in nothing, where the air was before.” Then we have : —“Chemistry tells us what’s in things. For instance, we know that a loaf .of bread has in it flower (sic), east (sic), water, and salt, but chemistry would tell you how much weight of each, and perhaps potatoes and something else as well. Chemistry is great on sausages and! wine. Sometimes such strange things are put in that government (sic), puts the shopman in jail.” A practical yioulth that! Compare the next with the other boy’® play on the Word “Chancery” ; it is not so good as more obvious: “Plumbago is a sharp pain, like a toothache in the hips and back.” Here we have a promising medical: —“A drug is any wholesome vegetable good for taking once in a way, but not for regular

food.” Very quaint is another boy’s definition of elasticity:—“lf you bend a stick of sealing wax, or pull it hard, 3-ou break it into some pieces, at leasttwo. It you bend a bit "of indiarubber, or pull it just as hard, you have not been pulling it a bit. When you let go, it is just where it was. If you pull and bend anything so, and you do not pull it at all, that is being elastic.”