Examination Papers.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 5012, 21 May 1889, Page 2

Examination Papers.

A Professor in Household Science has unbosomed himself to a Pall Mall interviewer on the oddities of examination papers that pass through his hands, The girl pupils range in age from twelve to eighteep, and the Professor seems depressed by the intelligence numbers of them display in answers, such as the following, on food and cookery; " Potatoes when done should be allowed to pit with a towel over them. Frying is done on a gridiron. Tea, coffee, and cocoa are usually adulterated with beer, ale, and brandy. Brown bread is more bulky and more spongy, and helps to distend the stomach belter than white bread j therefore it is more wholesome. Brown bread forms a crust on the stomach. Get a shoulder of mutton, trim it from the neck neatly, leave an inch or two of bare bone for a handle, add a pinch of pepper and salt. Then put it on the pan, and six or seven minutes will cook it. Begin to prepare cutlets by paring the chops of mutton. Have your frying-pan ruthlessly clean. A few hours should be sufficient to cook a cutlet. Cutlets should be boiled in cold water, and served cold with somo parsley and warm potatoes. Tea is adulterated with milk, sugar, and water; coffee the same. Brown bread irritates the intestines. Each cutlet should bo an inch long. Brown bread rallies the inside of the gullett.” On other subjects there are also ludicrous answers, of which the following are examples:—" Poison should be taken out with a pair of tweezers.” “An emetic is best for poisoning.” “If you w-ant to keep a room healthy, sit in it with a bowl of lime water." "In esse of a convulsive fit speak to the patient sharply.” “ You cannot breathe carbonic acid gas over again.” “ Place the person who has fainted in a lying posture, keep him quiet, and wait till he comes round." "If you want to keep your temperature, put a barometer into your mouth." “ When we go without food for a certain length of time we ascertain the best of the body." “ The function of nitrogen in the air is to repair the waste of our solid planet which is constantly taking place." “ If there was nitrogen in the air, wo would die of fits of laughing.” “ When sweeping the floor, a servant should pick out all organic matter.” “The air is ca'lcd a compound body because it contains 3 volumes in 1000 volumes of itself-that is, 33 times less than 1 per cent,” “ A candle burns for a good many reasons—to give light, to give heat, to save the expense of oil or gas.” "Starch the clothes with starch, salt, and butter.” "Cotton is derived from a plant called flax with a pretty blue flower.” “ Wool should bo worn always next the skin, us it soaks the perspiration and the rain.’ " Shoeblacks consist of puro carbon.” " Washing day is considered a day of wetness and general sloppinsss.” “ Carbon may be found in lumbago.” " Woollen materials dye well, and are non-condnctorsof lightning.” Surely these answers are not the result of demonstration lessons, but of unmitigated cram, general inattention, wd tbiekiDg.