UNIVERSITY SCHOLARSHIPS.

Evening Star, Issue 2933, 13 July 1872, Page 4

UNIVERSITY SCHOLARSHIPS.

To the Editor . Sifi, —I quite agree with your co respon* dent “ Fiat Justitia” in suspecting that the examination papers for New Zealand University sholarships were made out to suit, to some extent, the students of the Christchurch Grammar School. One of fhe council of the New Zealand University is intimately connected with that school—a master, lam informed. Probably this will account for the alteration in the subjects first proposed for examination. “ Ecuciid” was given out as the geometrical paper. The questions were carefully restricted to tho first four books. Trigonometry and conio sections were given as subjects. The questions were confined to plane trigonometry, leaving out altogether the more difficult subjects spherical trigonometry and conic sections, which are of equal or even greater importance. Now, the (probably intentional) effect of this, was to waste the tim of the Otago and other candidates, in “nibbing up” the higher branches of these subjects, in. which they would naturally expect to distinguish themselves from schoolboys, who would be tolerably well up in the elementary parts, but who possibly would be utterly unable to answer a single question in the higher branches. Yofcr correspondent says something about its being probable that the mathematical and phpsical subjects had not the number of marks allotted to them that their comparative importance demanded. Let him judge for himself. These were the proposed numbers, which show the comparative values attached to the different subjects Latin and Geek, 1000; arithmetic, algebra, euclid, trigonometry, and conic sections, 1000 ; chemistry, natural philosophy, botany, geology, and zoology, 5001 The programme first made out implied that the four L7O scholarships were to be given to the four candidates who distinguished themselves in the four special subjects—classics, mathematics, English, and the physical sciences. It is to be hoped that the New Zealand University will not add to the present dissatisfaction by awarding them to candidates who have only a general smattering of a number of subjects, but who know nothing thoroughly.—l am, &c., Otago.