In Lighter Vein

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIX, Issue 52, 26 December 1901, Page 18

In Lighter Vein

(By ' Quip.')

»*• Correspondence, newspaper cuttings, etc.. intended for this department should be addressed ' Quip,' N.Z. Tablet Office, Dunedln, and übould reach this office on or before Monday morning.

School Break-ups. It seems to be a special dispensation of Providence in favor of newspapers, that the school break-ups oocnr when Parliament has olosed down and things are generally flat, stale, and unprofitable. Bat for the columns and columns of names, distinguished in literature and the arts, which fill the papers about this time, newspaper men would have to kill the Czar or Bourke O'Brien, or some other celebrated man, on an average, two or three times a month. And I think it is immoral to kill any man more than onoe, exoept, perhaps, a poet. I always read the sohool reports through, beginning with the maid or youth who is dux and gets a medal, and ending with the tiny kindergarten tot who gets a flaming red and yellow picture-book as third prize for general proficiency in the A.B.C. The reading is a little sad. One cannot help thinking how many of these young lives, so full of bright promise and high hope for the future, will disappoint and be disappointed — especially among the boys, the majority of whom aspire to be tram-conduotora, and who, in all probability, will never achieve anything better than being lawyers or doctors or bishops.

On the other hand it is somewhat amusing to see the number of subjects that the teachers introduce, in order to be able to give each child a prize, because, you know, every child whose parents are not dead or confined to bed, must get something. They even teach spherical trigonometry and natural history and heaven knows what besides to youngsters who are still interested in the fact that Ned has a Cat, and that the Cat sits on the Mat— like most cats, in everybody's way. The other day, a curly-headed White Island bundle of innocence in a snowy Kate Green&way frock, black stockings, and white two-strap shoes, brought home a prize for natural history. The little maid is my next-door neighbor. 'Oh I' said the delighted mother, ' how did you win that / ' 'I thaid an elephant had five legth,' lisped the bundle. ' But an elephant has only four legs.' ' Yeth ; but the other girls said it had six, so I got the prize.' After all, then, the whole thing is comparative, and school reports are simply columns of comparisons. Comparisons, I have heard as odious ; bo I'll say no more.

The Concert. There is generally a concert in connection with a break-up. My daughter took part in the one at White Island last Friday. For two days beforehand she spoilt the landscape around oar place by going about with the front of her head loaded with five or six dozen curling-pins, all pointing in a different direction, and resembling in appearance magnified and corpulent wood-worms. And the back of her poll was made ' a joy for ever,' being richly bedight with four or five festoons, partly of rag and partly of hair. At the concert she played a duet with another maiden. They punished the instrument with great violence, their backs all the time turned to the audience. This arrangement was decided upon because the other girl's parents had threatened to take her away from the sohool ' unless she were allowed to sit at the piano on the side next the audience. Of course we did the same about our girl. We had to stand by our rights, you know. The compromise was an improve, ment, because if you were a lee-tle deaf, you could not hear the players doing the ' One-two- three-four ' business in an emphatic and aggressive stage-whisper. The lady pupil-teacher was there in all her glory. She affected the new ' straight-front.' She has kahki-colored hair most of the year, and she had it gathered into the summit of her cranium and tied in a wee-shy little knot that looked like the knob on the lid of a tea-pot and was simply there for convenience in putting the hair on or off. On the starboard side of the knob there was a bunch of something yellow. I think it was some toi-toi, but it may have been a sheaf of ripe oats. She played two or three items with more than the average rapturous swaying of the body and lifting of the curved and ringed little finger towards the ceiling that distinguishes the true artist. Another pleasing item on the programme was a dance by some children. There were no steps in it, but that is nothing. It was marvellous to see the way these youngsters tried to see who could 1 keep together the soonest.' And the way they left the piano be-

hind bespeaks great futures for them on the bioyole track. The whole thing was a great suooess, and showed that, in the accomplishments, as in everything else, White Island is not behind the rest of v New Zealand, but just a little east of it.

Searching the Scriptures. Pressmen up Oamaru way are beginning to 'search the Scriptares,' and with results that recall the experience of the etay-at-home Aucklander who was induced to hear a sermon one Sunday some months ago. He returned home greatly impressed. ' You are never too old to learn, 1 he remarked confidentially to a friend afterwards. ♦ Now I always thought Sodom and Gomorrah were husband and wife, and I find that they were nothing bat cities,' On Monday morning of last week the North Otago Times gave th c text of Bishop Grimes's fine discourse of the previous day as Isaiah 11., 10 (which, by the way, it rendered as follows) : ' Enter into the rock, and hide there in the dust, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of His majeßiy.' The Times had made th« discovery all alone and on its own account. In the evening the Mail gave the tex 1 actually used by Bishop Grimes : • Great shall be the glory of thi" last house more than of the first, taith the Lord of hosts, and in thi place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts. 1 The text is fro-a Aggeuß (Haggai) 11., 10, but the Bibliciste of the Mail staff discovered it in a hitherto unknown portion of the Scriptures which they call ' the Book of Prophets.' In the meantime the higher critic a of the Time* were out like black trackers upon the trail of the text The result of their search appeared as follows in Wednesday'^ issae :— ' In giving the text of Bishop Grimes' sermon on Sunday evening we should have made it read as follows : " Great shall be the glory of this last house, more than after the first, and in thi 8 place will I give peace, eaith the Lord of Hosts." The reference to the text was correctly given by us, but a mistake arose owing to th e differences of translation. 1