UNIVERSITY EXAMINATION STANDARDS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14699, 6 December 1909, Page 5

UNIVERSITY EXAMINATION STANDARDS.

TO THK EDITOR. Sib, —Will you kindly allow mo to call attention to what I consider a, matter of fair co;iiinK>nl in coimoction with tho annual examinations held l>y tho New Zealand University. J refer to the. harden. ciKaikid by tho nbsonc* of any uniform ftaudard awl tho unreliability of tho calendar as a truidd to what is required. Tho ufeebra paper set this year for tho iuatri«iktion ajid medical preliminary idfor<i3 an illustration of wh«t. T mean. In an in which a. wido olioico ol subjeo's is allowed, it is obviously unfair that any one pap«r should bo eo vory mtifh huirdcr tilian tho others, that. stu. <lenU taiing it should bo p!ace<l at a, coiwits dimdvuntage. as compared with IhoK who havo elected to 1» examined in sonio oilier subject. But this is exactly what has happor.cd ihis year. I bare no hesitation in eayinif that it would ho easior for a candidate to obtain 80 per cent, in soma of tho other papers than 40 percent, in this year's matriculation algebra, paper. Of course, nobody could reasonably onject to_t.lio Hniversity raising its standards, if il eo desired, but it seems somewhat unfair that such a ohairgo Bhould be. confined to a sintrle subject, or mado without due notice being given in the officiat oalemtor, But tho calendar cippeaw to ho Koniething like tho weather prophets. It sometimes prophesies false things, " fio out, make a picflic, enjoy vourself in tho country," says tlvo weather prophet, " for to-morrow will be fine." And often, trusting in that prophet, wo do go, to findi instead that tho clouds have gathered,and that there is ? . great rain. So it is -with ihe calendar. " Geography, political and physical," prophesies the' calendar, but when we come to the paper actually set for matriculation we read much of munitions of war being tranfiportcd across the ''great divitio," and of the economio and other factors which induced tho Maoris to settle, by tho waterside, but of physical geography never _ a word. In the language of epigram, it is conspicuous by its abSftnre. In tho caso of the algebra paper to which I have proviousK referred, this sudden raising of the standard without any previous warning presses most heavily upon those sitting for the medical preliminary examination, since for them failure in one subject means failure in all. U seema a planm.' injustice that, many oandid&tce wh') iivjuhl undoubtedly have passed A© tost, with had the examiner conformeil to liio est.jhlished standfl-rd, should ho in danger of lx>ing robbed of the suewsss they deserve through his failure to do so. -I am, etc., T. Rdsseu. Alhyn House, Duncdin, December 3.