ARMY COMMISSIONS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14447, 13 February 1909, Page 4

ARMY COMMISSIONS.

STRICTURES BY THE QUALIFYING BOARD. (Fr.oii Odb Own Corrf.sfokut,3T.) LONDON', December 21. The "Broad Arrow" gives a painful insight into the menial calibre of some of tho young gentlemen who present, themselves for commissions in the British Army. The Army Qualifying Board, in the report on the 326 candidates who presented themselves in Sfpr.'tnber, makes these remarks:—"The.English essays, as u whole, were- mediocre. Most of the candidates could express themselves with tome facility, though many of them were too fond- of colloquial phrases; but very few indeed were ablo to arrange their thoughts in proper sequence, or to vise above the obvious and the commonplace. Tho work in dictation was very uneven; some of the candidates made the most grot-csquo mistokra, both in orthography and in nunctualion; many at hers lost marks by pure carelessness and inattention. Tho procia writing was in most cases unequivocally bad. Its badness was not to be accotuded for by the fact—which was generally apparent—that the writers had little idea of the purposes served by precis writing. Their work was often written in a slovenly manner, defaced by interlineations and corrections, and by bad spelling, arrangement, and composition.

" lint, the vital defects were recklessness in misstatement and an apparent inability of the writers to read a simple narration, with any degree of care and intelligence. A considerable number wilfully imported matter of their own imagination into the fitory, apparently with the idea of improving it. Either the majority of candidates had not been exercised in precis writing or their teaching had been much misdirected. Much of t.be arithmetic work was very unsatisfactory, the majority of the candidates being unable to deal with tho narH of the subject on which special stress is laid in the syllabus. The results of the examination in geometry were very poor indeed. There is still an unduly large proportion of candidate who know practically nothing of geography. On the. whole, the quality of the work in chemistry was distinctly P«)r. A laiiii-uhlih; ignorance of sound elementary knowledge of French was shown. Oi the 10 candidates offering Oernmii not otic wa; really good, and some, were very bad. Only a small proportion of the candidates in Latin are safe from making blunders of the most elementary description. A very large number of candi« dates were content to write down sheer nonsense in place of translation, and all but a very few of the pieces of prose contained bad mistakes.of accidence and syntax. Tho one candidate in Greek sent up half a-<lozea words of no value. The report stales that the work in algebra was geiieiai'v neat, and in many cases good, anil that tee work of tho candidates in history was on the who'o rather hett-er than ar some previous examinations. Of the 326 candidates presenting themselves for the whole examination, 113 passed. The following are tho percentages of failures in specific subjects:— C'.indi- Pereen. Subject. dales. Failed. t a ,r e English 326 ... SO ... 215 History and Geo326 ... 63 ... 20.9 Elementary Mathc- '-„ 526 - 183 ... 55.+ Practical Measuremenis 326 ... 93 30 , Mathematics 1 02 4D in'J *r' onc . n 195 .'.'.' 50 .".' 25.7 }'.''«"* 316 ... 107 ;.. 33.9 c, . mm 10 ... 6 .. 69.0 Latin 130 ... 54 ~.5