VICTORIAN PERIOD.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 December 1931, Page 13

VICTORIAN PERIOD.

GIRLS’ SPELLING LEAGUE. Now that our dresses are longer, and our hats becoming Victorian, perhaps some of the virtues of that much-maligned period will also return, such as thrift and the ability to spell correctly. Education jn recent years has worn so many frills on its skirts and flowers in its hair that the supporting, structure has been a trifle neglected. Now a new form of amusement has arisen in England, and its nature is indicated by the name of a new organisation, the Girls’ Schools’ Spelling League. Under its auspices girls are forming themselves into teams of eleven, and they go up and down the country engaging in terrific orthographic tusles over long lists of “catchy’’ words that are dictated to them. The league aims at ‘‘exploiting the sporting and combative instincts. of youth for the purpose of extending and improving its knowledge of English,” and nothing could be more desirable, as many a victimised business man will agree. “But, says an observer, “I have seen a list of words .which have been submitted to girls

up to the age of 18, and I am alarmed. How, for example, do you spell the name of the throat malady which takes, its name from the tonsils ? You are probably wrong, as Dent’s Medical Dictionary is. Do you feel entirely, spontaneously cheerful about ‘Ghibelline,’ ‘harassing’ ‘obbligato, ‘sibylline,’ ‘Euterpe’ ? Those are for young ladies under eighteen. There are worse humiliations in the ‘under fourteen’ list—‘cartilage, ‘canoeing,’ ‘scarlatina,’ ‘annihilated,’ all of which contain just that element of doubt which leads to scribbling on blotting paper to see how it looks or a hasty mental 'rummage for a synonym; And even children under eleven, it seems, are expected to cope with such vexations as ‘flannelette,’ ‘dahlia,’ ‘ferreting,’ ‘caterpillar,’ and ‘battalion.’ Four of them, detestable young miracles, scored 100 per cent., and received half a guinea each. ’ Mr. A. G. Grenfell, headmaster of Mostyn House School, Cheshire, is the secretary of the league. “It is a genuine attempt to do something to raise the appallingly low standard of spelling in these schools for the future mothers of the race,” he said. “In one week lately three actual mothers have treated me to ‘scarletina, ‘diptheria,’ and ‘immediately.’ The competitions introduce a good deal of fun into the normally dreary wastes of education. They are held three times a year, and the team’s aggregate determines the victory. Eighty-one schools entered teams in the last competition. One school returned an astonishingly meagre score, but it turned out that the headmistress had absentmindedly added up ages, not marks. Both senior and junior trophies were won this year by an English school in Wales.”