BOYS' HIGH SCHOOL.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20104, 6 December 1930, Page 18

BOYS' HIGH SCHOOL.

DEMONSTRATION NIGHT. THROUGH THE LABORATORIES. Many parents of the boys and friends of the School attended Demonstration Evening in the Scienco laboratories of Boys' High School last night. Tho exhibition of woodwork provided a good illustration of boys' handicraft, which is more often associated with a technical than with a secondary school. All the first-year pupils at High School tnko woodwork; after the first vear tho work is dono by those boys who like it. It is not undertaken with the idea of making all or even the majority of tho boys expert carpenters and joiners, though some take very enthusiastically to tho work, but merely in order to teach tho lads to use their hands. But in the display last night there were many articles which would grace a furniture shop. Dinner-waggons, stools, bookshelves, flower-stands, and fire-screens, all neatly finished and nicely varnished, wero to be seen. The Laboratories. A buzz which denoted industry camo from tho laboratories, where many spectacular experiments wero going on. Of recent years botany has been included in the secondary school curriculum as an alternative science for boys. Displayed last night wero specimens illustrating tho various ways by which plants may become pollinated. A feature of the experiments in the chemistry laboratory was their practical nature, many of them being conducted on a email scale in much tho same way as they are in commercial chemistry. Sulphuric acid and nitrie acid were being manufactured by the ordinary commercial processes. The electrolysis of water was proceeding, while one of the most instructive experiments was the fixation of nitrogen from the air. Perhaps tho pupils who had chosen electricity as their science "were able to give the most spectacular displays and the requisite number of thrills in tho way of electric shocks. An interesting instrument was the electric thermometer for measuring high temperatures where mercury is unsuitable. The instrument is so sensitive that vela five temperatures of the sun and moon can be recorded. Though thov did not appeal so much to the eye there were lessons equally valuable to be derived from the physics I and mechanics laboratory. The Wireless Club was also in full swing sending and receiving Morse messages, as well as conducting trials j in radio-telephony.