FAMOUS DUNCES.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5244, 27 February 1928, Page 3

FAMOUS DUNCES.

DULLNESS AT SCHOOL.

ST—CASES OF CELEBRITIES'.

One of the most brilliant of living meit is Lord Birkenhead, yet he has just confessed that when. He was a boy he sat for an examination in which, after two days, the examiners stated he was a “half-wit,” that is, one who showed no signs of being able to pass the test. Lord Birkenhead has since then astonished the. world by his meteoric rise to eminence. Among the other boys labelled as “half-wits” was one named Amery, who is now a Cabinet Minister. !

It was said by wise old Roger Ascham four hundred years ago, that experience of life taught him that those “which commonly be called the wisest, the best learned, and the best men also, when they be old, were never commonly the quickest of wit When they were young.” DARWIN THE DULLARD. At any rate,, the. list of famous dunces is long and illustrious. Sir Walter Scott was the despair of his tutors. At Edinburgh l University he showed no signs, of his later amazing genius and energy, and Professor Dalzell declared that “Dunce he i s , and dunce he will remain.” Mr Hugh Walpole, too was not a bright schoolboy. Indeed it is obvious that Walpole hated his school life, and even to this day he avers that he cannot count except upon his fingers. Scientists cannot be considered at all as stupid men, but at school several of them were by no means bright. Newton, the propoounder o! the theory of gravitation, usually gavitated towards the lower end of his class, and although Darwin was zealous in subjects which interested him, it was the general opinion of his masters that a duller boy, had never entered the school. FAMOUS PREACHERS. Preachers who have been dunces include Dr. Chalmers, Adam Clark, and Henry Ward Beecher. 1 Chalmers was expelled from his parish school as a dunce for whom there was no hope ; his collected works fi11 1 34 large volumes, and lie became the Professor of. Moral. Philosophy at St. Andrews and the Professor of Divinity at Edinburgh. Adam Clark’s father described him as a “grievous dunce,” and this grievous dunce wasi president of the Methodist Conference three times, and wrote a popular long commentary on the Bible and a learned Bibliographical distionary of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Oriental books. Henry Ward Beecher, who preached for 40 years at one church, and whose writings filled volumes, was one of the mightiest of American preachers. As a boy he was a dunice, and every Sunday, when his father set the children to learn the catechism, young Henry always broke down.

Sherlock Holmes, the famous detective of fiction, smoked strong black shag tobacco and derived inspiration from it when puzzling over some problem of more than ordinary complexity. Shag is too full-flavoured for many smokers. It contains a lot of nicotine, and excess of nicotine is a bad thing. The habitual use of such tobacco is bound sooner or iater to affect the consumer injuriously. Unfortunately, practically all imported tobaccos are heavily charged with nicotine. And in that respect they differ, essentially from our New Zealand grown tobaccos, the comparatively small amount of nicotine which constitutes one of their Chief recommendations. Also —and this ip important—they are all toasted, and toasting brings out the flavour of the leaf in a most remarkable way. There are several brands of this popular tobacco. Riverhead Gold, mild; Navy Cut (Bulldog label), medium; and Cut Plug No. 19 (Bull’s Head), full strength. Each of them has its merits. That seasoned smoker, Sherlock Holmes, would doubtlessly prefer the last-named *