STUDENTS' DIVERSE TASTES

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2162, 30 May 1914, Page 5

STUDENTS' DIVERSE TASTES

V —i , '■■IN-ESSAY WAITING. At tile recent matriculation examinations, candidates were given the choice of several subjects 'for essay writing. Tho examiner states in tho report, which has just been issued, that the majority of the candidates selected "Captain Scott and his comrades" as their essay subject. Some of the essays were admirable, and ,a vory large proportion or them were well done. /The examiner states that ho was sorry' to find 1 that tho story of Scott's Expedition was not so well known as oho would havo hoped. Ho would have thought that the teach-' ers in the schools would havo seen to is that every boy old enough to appreciate it -re-read, or. even committed to.memory,' Scott's "Mcssago to tho Public." Yofc very few of tho candidates could exhibit inore than a newspaper reader's knowledge of. it: still fewer quoted 'any of its pregnant Sentences. Ho found an exception in tho case of the Otago candidates, and for that believed they wcro indebted to tho Otago Branch of tho Navy League. He learned from ono of tho essays that the leaguo had caused a reprint of tho message to bo sent to al) tho schools m its district. Toachors who were impressed with the value of reminding tlieir boys of the "last words" of Humphrey Gilbert or Richard Grenvillo should not allow them, he said, to forgot the last words of Robert Scott. On tile whole, the essays written on the Antarctic Expedition were characterised by.a sincere and manly tone. One of the subjects set for essay was Wordsworth's linos: "To me the meanest flower that blows Can givo Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." It was hoped that a small—a vory small—number ■ of candidates would havo selected' that subject as one that appealed to their imagination. Unfortunately a very largo number chose it becauso they saw in it an opportunity for moralising. The result was rather appalling. Maudlin sentimentality and pulnit platitudes were re'eled off' with truly dreadful fluency. It was significant, however, that tlio more unexceptionable the moral sentimonts wero tho worse became the grammar and the cruder the diction.