QUAKER ‘ HOWLERS ’

New Zealand Tablet, 21 September 1911, Page 1885

QUAKER ‘ HOWLERS ’

/W and Present , the Friends’ School Mamwinp publishes some amusing blunders which have bee/noted m examinations at the society’s schools An i n graduate, many will be interested To leafn on tT authority of staid young students, is (1) a person nnf T to. the mark; (2) a lower class of board school. Other

budding Dr. Johnsons have been equally original in the matter of definitions. * An abstract noun is one that cannot be heard, seen, touched, or smelt ; or, to take the pessimistic view of another, it is ‘ the name of something which has no existence, as goodness.’ ‘An axis is an imaginary line on which the earth is supposed to take its daily routine.’ ‘ The Pharisees were people who like to show off their goodness by praying in synonyms.’ The following is illustrative of history as remembered by the Quaker schoolboy: ‘Joan of Arc was a. peasant’s daughter, dressed in a man’s clothes, and went to fight the English and was slain, a,nd her soldiers 'said don’t you think you had better wkit till to-morrow to besiege Rouen.’ ‘ The Wars of the Roses killed a lot of the important knights and they never got another start.’ • ‘ Elizabeth had a better claim to the throne than Mary, for she had possession nine-tenths of the throne by law.’ ‘ Far away on the deep the Spanish Armada saw the beacon fires twinkling in endless chain from St. Michael’s Mount to the Yorkshire Moors, and knew that England was ready.’ ‘ Charles I. was going to be married to the Infanta of Spain he went to see her and broke it off at once.’ It is interesting to be informed, too, that ‘ Every German goes to school at an early age, however old he is.’