SOME OF THE SCHOOLING WE ARE TAXED FOR !

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 399, 3 December 1880, Page 9

SOME OF THE SCHOOLING WE ARE TAXED FOR !

A graduate of one of our high schools applies to a gentleman in the commission business for a position in his store, whereupon tbe following questions and answers occur : Merchant. — Well, young man, I uuderstand you are an applicant for the position I advertised as vacant in my store. High School Boy. — Yes, sir. M.— l presume, then, that you can come prepared to work bard and faithfully in the interests of your employer, work up by degrees, and at the proper time become a thorough business man and have a business of your own. 1 H. S. B. — Yes sir, such are my plans.

M. — What advantages have you had in the way of schooling ? H. S. B. — I graduated from the grammar school at the age of fourteen, and during the past four years attended the high school, from which I graduated recently. M . — Have you any knowledge of accounts ? H. 8. B. — No, sir — they do not teach bookkeeping in the high schools.

M. — Here is a note due to-day, upon which I was calculating the interest when you came. You will see it has several payments endorsed on its back. Will you take a pencil and figure the amount dne to-day for me ? H. 8. B. — I am afraid, sir, that I could not do it, as we did not study arithmetic in the high school. The teacher said we finished it in the grammar school, and it is so long a time since I studied it that I have forgotten nearly all I knew about it. M, — Will you take a pen and write the address of our firm on this envelope ? H. 8. B. — I would rather not try, sir. While at the high school we had no instruction, in writing, and I had so many exercises to copy that I was obliged to write fast, and do it all with a pencil, so I do not write nearly as well as when I left the grammar school. M. — We have a great variety of goods in our store, and our young men must have the ability to spell correctly. Are you a good speller? H. S. B. — I can't say, sir, that I am. I did not have any exercises in spelling in the high school, and I don't know how I should do.

M. — Here are some papers— a note, draft, bill of sale, invoice, account of sales, check, lease, deed, policy, mortgage and a letter of credit. Will you look them over and name each as you hand them back to me ?

H. S. B.— Eeally, sir, I have never seen such papers before, and I could not distinguish one from the other. M. — Well young man, what did you last study in the high school? H. S. B. — Chemistry, natural history, and French. M. — Oh ! well let me see, you bad better apply to my friends ■ ,in the drug business. Your knowledge of chemistry would probably fit you for their line of business. H. S. B. — I fear, sir, that Ido not understand chemistry well enough to make my knowledge of any value in business. I only studied it because it was one of the studies of the school ; 1 took but little interest in it, and therefore do not know much about it. M. — You say you studied French ? H. IS. B.— Yes sir. M. — If you understand French, some position in a foreign importing house would be more suitable. There you would be useful, as your knowledge of French would enable you to speak and correspond -with foreign customers. 11. S. B. — 1 did not Kirn, sir, to speak the language; it was mostly tians.ations that we did. Idu not think, sir, that lam competent to be trusted with such duties. M. — What o:her branches di-1 you study at the high school ? H. S. B. — Algebra, English literature, physiology, ancient history, natural philosophy, astronomy, geometry, trigonometry, moial philosophy, civil government, rhetoric, and, as I said before, FrencH, natural history and chemistry. M. — And you have not studied reading, writing, arithmetic, spelling, or grammar since you were feurteen years of age ? H. S. B. — No, sir ; I finished those iv the grammar school, so my teachers said, and I have my diploma from the school officers as proof of it. W. — I am afraid, young man, that your qualifications are not suitable for the position which I advertised to fill. I want a youncr man to begin with us who can make himself generally useful at, fiist, and rise as opportunities occur and, be proves himself worthy.— Fitchburg, Mass., Daily Sentinel.

Old Coke, of Norfolk, would often kill fifty brace of partiidge to his own gun on a first of September, and that gun a fliut-and-steel fowling piece ; and the prodigious sura of nearly one thousand (troui«e fell to Lord Walsingham's pun in one day, ?e y en or eight years ago* rnder tbe heading, " How we have advanced pinc«* a.d. 1800," an English contempoi ary says :— " In 180 V, London bad a population of 86.000 against 4,714, 0u0 to-d«y. In 1802, London bad 68 acres of docks ; now the extrut is 690 acres. The atone used for Plymouth breakwater would be sufficient for the great pyramid of Cheops. A single private sbip-builning yard lias produced more tonnage per annum than the who'c of Elizabeth's fleet opposed to the Armada. Great Britain expoits enough coal to friiprht ail tfie merchantmen in the world In this century more bridges ha\e been built thau in. »il the previous years tinea l'a>ar &a\v Britain. Bauita)y improvements have in Great Britain abided &ix yeats to life. Charity in its material form has in England gr'>\vn twice, and in France three times, *8 fait as public wealth. The earnings of the British nation have doubled in twenty years, and quadrupled since Waterloo, and this exolw^re of untaxed incomes.