COMMERCIAL FIRMS ASKED TO PROVIDE SWIMMING RELAYS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18642, 20 December 1928, Page 10

COMMERCIAL FIRMS ASKED TO PROVIDE SWIMMING RELAYS.

A swimming carnival at the Tepid Baths will be held by the Canterbury Centre of the New Zealand Swimming Association on January 30, 1»29. Thproceeds will be devoted to the funds for sending Canterbury’s team to the New Zealand championships. At this carnival it is proposed to hold a relay race open to all the commercial houses of Christchurch. The relay team shall consist of four members, each of whom shall swim one length of the Tepid Baths. Ladies' teams will receive a handicap on men’s teams. A Challenge Cup has been donated for this race if there sre five or more starters. One. firm may enter any number of teams. No entry fee will be charged. Entries close on January 23. Mr 11. D. J. Mahon has joined the ranks of headmasters to level criticism at the matriculation examination. Speaking at the Auckland Grammar School prize-giving, he said that of 160 pupils who passed the matriculation only 34 went to the university, while 65 returned to school to take at least one year’s post-matriculation work. “This leaves sixty-one who regarded the matriculation examination as a species of leaving ceitificate. but who had no intention of attending the university,” he said. ‘‘l have long felt that the matriculation course is not most suitable for this latter class of pupils, and until a different type of leaving certificate is instituted for those who are not proceeding to the university it will be difficult tc organise in our fifth forms satisfactorv courses of a pre-vocational character with a commercial or scientific bias, according to the careers the pupils intend to take up.”