SPELLING BEES

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17009, 22 July 1929, Page 5

SPELLING BEES

AND ORATORICAL CONTESTS NEW YORK, June 6. What was once carried on in early days in the "little red school house" in spelling matches and speaking contests is now carried on on a national scale. Some [enterprising newspaper (or newspapers) lis ordinarily behind such enterprises. ■The capital city, Washington, is usually the scene of the finals. This city is increasingly becoming the centre of the cultural and social, as well as political life. The spelling-down contest lias just had its finals held at Washington. It lasted for three hours. There were 21 entrants, coining from as many States, each representing a certain newspaper in that State. A little 12-year-old Irish girl spelled down the others, and so won the thousand dollars prize. The second, to win oOOdbl.. was Viola Sbrahao, from .Milwaukee. One can say that she wa,s not Irish. The third was a .Japanese lad of 1.5, whose name is Teru Hayashi, and be secured 260d01. He took on with quiet dignity such English words as ''gamut, ''correlate," "imminent," "* >illenniurn," "diaphanous," and "aggrandisement." Among the survivors for the national final were only four boys, and two of these were Japanese Seventeen were girls. The international oratorical contests have not yet come to their finals, Of ibis contest a year ago, Mr. Hoover said be knew of no occasion (this was at the finpl, in Washington, when members of the Supreme Court were judges), that was "more stimulative of hope and faith in the future of our democracy." So far, in the local contests in the States, the winners have been either girls or representatives of "foreign" peoples. The Nordics are beginning to scratch their heads to discover the why of all this, much as Americans are beginning to scratch their heads over the victories of the French in tennis.