E.—lA

2

The answers of many of the candidates in history showed surprising verbal memory, with very little power of any other kind. Of the elementary science papers, the examiner reports that " whilst many papers exhibit careful study and marked scientific capacity, the average of the work is scarcely so good as last year." The amount received in fees from candidates is £404 Is., which is sufficient (within £5 or £6) to cover the whole cost of the examination. A complete file of the examination papers is enclosed with this report. I do not think it is necessary to reprint the papers for Class C; as the examination for that class is ordinarily conducted by the "University. It was undertaken by the department this year for reasons that are not likely to occur again. I have, &c, Wm. Jas. Habens, The Hon. the Minister of Education. Inspector-General of Schools.

Class E. —English Gbammar and Composition. Time allowed: Three hours. 1. Parse as fully as you can — Let me no longer waste the night over the page of antiquity or the sallies of contemporary genius, but pursue the solitary walk, where Vanity, ever changing, but a few hours past walked before me —where she kept up the pageant, and now, like a froward child, seems hushed with her own importunities. 2. What various ways are there of forming the plural of English nouns ? Give instances of words that have two plurals (distinguishing the difference between the two plurals of each), of plurals that have no singulars, and of plurals that have become singulars. 3. What adjectives do not admit of comparison by inflexion ? Compare fore, late, nigh, old. Give instances of superlative adjectives that have no corresponding positive forms. 4. Give the past tense and the perfect participle of creep, cling, beat, drink, drive, rid, lie, spit, stride, sling, hit, tread, hang, dive, swim, slit, roast, swell, toake, wring. Where two forms exist, give them, and, if they differ in use, state both uses. 5. Form sentences to bring out the correct use of the prepositions at and on after smile; to and with after correspond; for and upon after wait; at, for, and on after call; and sentences to show the use of appropriate prepositions after concur, differ, dissent, contend. 6. Correct or justify — During the three or four first years of its existence. There are not less than twenty of the sort. My brother as well as my sister approve of this step. Your's faithfully, John. G. Abnott. The Board have ordered him to desist. Griesbach, with the majority of the critics, are of this opinion. I should have been glad to have accepted it. The hay smells sweetly. A two-foot rule. 7. Write a passage dictated by the Supervisor. 8. Write a list of words dictated by the Supervisor as an exercise in spelling.

Class E. —Exeecise in Dictation and Spelling. (Part of paper on English Grammar and Composition.) 7. Dictation exercise:—"Most readers must have witnessed with delight the joyous burst which attends the dismissing of a village-school on a fine summer evening. The buoyant spirit of childhood, repressed with so much difficulty during the tedious hours of discipline, may then be seen to explode, as it were, in shout, and song, and frolic, as the little urchins join in groups in their playground, and arrange their matches of sport for the evening. But there is one individual who partakes of the relief afforded by the moment of dismission, whose feelings are not so obvious to the eye of the spectator, or so apt to receive his sympathy. I mean the teacher himself, who, stunned with the hum and suffocated with the closeness of his schoolroom, has spent the whole day (himself against a host) in controlling petulance, exciting indifference to action, striving to enlighten stupidity, and labouring to soften obstinacy ; and whose very powers of intellect have been confounded by hearing the same dull lesson repeated a hundred times by rote, and only varied by the various blunders of the reciters."— Sir Walter Scott. 8. Spelling exercise: —Benefited, committal, beleaguered, analogous, peremptory, antediluvian, antichristian, exorbitant, eccentric, condign, discipline, receive, believe, moneys, parallel, porcelain, inveigle, psalmody, assuage, victuals, worthiest, witticism, irrepressible, applicable, rhetorical.

Class E.—Arithmetic. Time allowed: Three hours. 1. If the divisor is one million seventy thousand and thirty-eight, the quotient forty-five millions sixty-seven thousand and eight, and the remainder two hundred and six thousand five hundred and ninety, find the dividend and write it down in words. 2. Multiply 23 acres 2 roods 16 poles 14 yards by 29J. 3. If a coal wagon can carry 5 tons G cwt. 2 qr. 12 lb., how many wagons will be required for the carriage of a cargo of 1,791 tons of coal ? 4. Find, by Practice, the value of 15 lb. 11 oz. 16 dwt. of gold, at £46 14s. 6d. per lb.