The Evening Star THURSDAY, MAY 7, 1874.

Evening Star, Issue 3496, 7 May 1874, Page 2

The Evening Star THURSDAY, MAY 7, 1874.

It would not, we believe, be very to discover the reasons which induced those members of the Education Board who decided the matter of the ing_ of the Provincial Scolarships to decide on witholding them from the two candidates, Frank Stilling anc* Isabella Hislop. If private ani mosities or political considerations could be considered to have formed auj part of the motives which induced them to decide as they did, the th ing woulo >e less surprising. But the well knowi character of the three gentlemen who sat at the Board yesterday would

at once cause us to dismiss any such hypothesis. Yet when all the circumstances of the case are taken into consideration the conclusion at which they have arrived must be looked upon as a most extraordinary one. Our readers of course understand that the' candidates for these scholarships are divided into four classes—viz., High and Grammar School boys, High and Grammar School girls, District School boys, and District School girls. High School and Grammar School pupils are required to do higher work—to obtain more marks—in order that they may gain a scholarship. The result of the recent examination was that Stilling, of the High School, gained 847 marks in all; I. Hislop, 805 marks ; and W, D. Milne, ,680. But the District School candidates had less work to do than the others, and Milne gained a higher percentage than the others did. If he had been examined in Latin and the advanced parts of the mathematics prescribed, he might have gained an equally high percentage; but we have no reason to suppose that this would or would not haye been the case : we have only to deal with the actual results of the examination. F. Stilling and I. Hislop gained a larger aggregate number of marks than Milne did —the latter gets a scholarship, the former two do not. The examiners say that when they set the questions, they did not regard the gaining of 70 per cent, as at all a necessary condition to the scholarships being awarded; they' say, too, that they are of opinion “ that Frank Stilling and I. Hislop, as well as W. D. Milne, have shown such proficiency as amply to entitle them to the award offered.” It seems to us that the Board of Education ought to have had very strong reasons indeed before they could have considered themselves warranted in refusing to carry out the recommendations of the Board of Examiners, and thus virtually saying that the examiners had shown themselves unfit for their duty. Considering that the Board of Examiners includes some of the leading professional men in Dunedin, and that they work gratuitously, such an assumption is evidently as paltry as it is absurd.