THE COMPETITIONS.

Southland Times, Issue 14437, 7 June 1910, Page 4

THE COMPETITIONS.

The Competitions Society has la-* sued the schedule for its sixth annual festival, which will be held this year in August. The Society has now passed through its experimental years and may claim to be fairly established. Last year it met with a gratifying measure of support both from the competitors and from the public, and, encouraged by the symptoms of growing public approval, it has drafted its programme for this year on a larger scale. The Society is carrying on a very important work in the community, and on the score ot the educative value of its work it deserves all the support that the people of the town can give it. This statement is made with confidence by those who have been associated with the management of the competitions since their inception in Invercargill, but possibly it may be doubted by those who have not had the same opportunity of watching the effect of the competitions, and who are consequently less well informed. It is satisfactory, therefore, to be able to cite an undoubted authority as to the improvement which follows from participation in these competitions.' Mr C. N. Baeyertz is one of the most experienced judges in Australasia. He has made his reputation by his work at Dunedin, Ballarat, and other centres, and he is now admittedly one of the highest authorities on music and elocution in Australasia. Mr Baeyertz has just completed his task as judge at the Christchurch Competitions, and in an article contributed to the Press he states some of the conclusions to which he has been led by his wide experience. He writes: —“ I no longer have the slightest doubt about the high value and usefulness of these contests. I am perfectly certain that they stand for increased intellectual activity and a considerable stirring of dry bones. From long personal observation, I know how greatly they improve the work of individual competitors. They make students out of mere amateurs, and that is a wonderfully good thing.” A feature of the Christchurch contests was the success of competitors from Dunedin. The secret of this success Mr Baeyertz finds not in any superior intelligence or refinement in the Dunedin people, for no such superiority exists, but in the years of training which Dunedin competitors have had at theii own competitions. “It would be absolutely foolish.” Mr Baeyertz asserts, “to pretend that the competitions in Dunedin have not accomplished a great good.” The proof of the value of public criticism may he found in the successes of the experienced Dunedin competitors at the Christchurch contests. If the Competitions have been good for culture and discipline in Dunedin it follows that they have also been good for culture and discipline in Invercargill. It follows also that students of music and elocution will find in the Competitions a means of advancement and Improvement in their studies. The schedule of the Invercargill Competitions this year comprises no less than 68 contests In music, elocution, literature, speeches, drawing and calisthenics, so that ample scope is given for those who are striving to attain a higher degree of proficiency in the branches of education enumerated. The prizes offer-

eel for competition are in a sense a secondary consideration, hut the schedule of the local Society is no less attractive because it provides for prizes aggregating £IOO. It is to be hoped that those who are studying music, elocution and composition will enter freely, and that many who have not taken up these arts will be induced by the Competitions to occupy some of their leisure time in self-im-provement. The Competitions Society deserves to be complimented upon its energy and perseverance, and it is to be hoped that in August its labours will be- crowned with complete sucTess.