PROVINCIAL SCHOLARSHIPS EXAMINATION.

Evening Star, Issue 3470, 7 April 1874, Page 3

PROVINCIAL SCHOLARSHIPS EXAMINATION.

To the, Editor. _ Sir, —Many teachers hare taken very considerable trouble in preparing pupils for the Provincial Scholarships examination. If that regulation is td be enforced which provides that candidates must, in order to gain a scholarship, obtain at least 70 per cent of the aggregate number of marks, all their trouble will be thrown away. I say this, judging from the English grammar paper which was set before the boys and girls this morning : a more difficult paper on the subject could hardly be drawn up. Indeed, it is far better fitted to show the examiner's power of ferreting out obsolete, obscure, and out-of-the-way phrases, than to serve aay useful purpose in the w ( ay oi; testing the knowledge which beys and girls under examination may possess of the ordinary nsages of their mother .tongue. If this paper, a good one in its way, were shown without the heading to any person conversant wit a such matters, he would at once conclude that it had been set for the Melbourne B.A. honors examination : it would never oecur to him that it had been drawn up by one who believed that any boy er girl under sixteen would secure 70 per cent of the marks. Some time ago a teachers' examina tian was held here, and I do not doubt that any teacher on seeing the paper given on that occasion and on the present one, would pronounce this to be incomparably-the more difficult. About the unfairness of this Ido not -speak; it is sufficient ; that I call your attention| to the facts.—lam, &0., , ~ DIDABKALOS. April 7.