Mr STEVEN’S ESSAY COMPETITIONS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3720, 16 October 1906, Page 2

Mr STEVEN’S ESSAY COMPETITIONS.

[TO THE EDITOR.] Sir.—l obsrve by a paragraph in your paper dated 6th inst, a reference to the two several essays for which I have donated prizes to the public school children of Foxton, and as there appears to be some misapprehension on the part ot the School Committee, I shall be obliged if you will be pleased to publish the enclossd letter also, which is a copy of one which I have written to the Chairman wherein it will be seen that the Committee, no doubt in deference to what it believed to be my wishes, appears to have made no alteration or reduction in the draft questions which I submitted whereas I was under the impression that the Committee would, if they considered the conditions 100 elaborate, have used the pruning knife freely. So soon as the Committee shall have formulated such conditions as it, in its discretion, thinks best, kindly obtain from the Chairman a copy of each essay and print 50 copies ot each for circulation'amongst the children. It will now be observed that th£ matter is entirely in the hands of the Committee and as suggested in your paragraph, sir, in the words of the man who won the battle of Waterloo, I do sincerely wish the children to " take the job on ” and may the winners be as proud of their victory as Wellington was of his conquest, and it will afford me much-pleasure to transmit the prizes to the Chairman so soon as required.—l am, etc John Stevens. Wellington ,Oct. 11. Mr A. D. Clemett, Chairman Foxton S.C. Sir.—ln reply to your letter of 9th inst. respecting the draft of. essays required to be written by the School children of Foxton- for. the purpose of winning the several prizes which I have donated, I , desire to say that there is evi-, dently a misapprehension in the,; minds of the Committee. The. drafts which I have submitted were merely suggestions for the approval of the Committee and it was my expressed wish that the . Committee should, in its discre- , tiou, make any modification oralj teration which they deemed ne- ■ cessary without any further rej ference to me. It was farthest . from my thoughts to impose a I task upon the children which! . would be considered unreasonable, I did, however, adopt the principle of giving the general idea somewhat fully under the impression that it was much more simple for the Committee to strike its pen. through any of the questions which were considered too elaborate, than I should impose the trouble upon the members of the , Committee of having to formulate questions, and I shall therefore now be obliged if your Committee will kindly reduce the questions in any manner it may think fit. With relerence to Miss Langley’s essay which you say was sent to me, it is quite true. This, however, in my opinion, was not written under the supervision of any person and I believe the first principle in a written essay is the certainty of any paragraph being the original composition of the ; writer. I handed both this and Miss Spiers’ letter to the Secretary , of the School Committee some months since. I am under the T impression that when they were written there were but few of the school children who "knew what the conditions were. In fact, it is impossible that they could have known as no conditions hadJbggja : circulated. Kindly inform me when - - your Committee has decided the terms upon which the prizes are to be competed for and I will with pleasure, transmit to you a cheque for seven guineas, the gross amount of such prizes. In order to clear , up the little misapprehension which has existed, I have sent a i copy of this letter to the local paper for publication.—l am etc John Stevens. [When the Committee has made the necessary modifications in the conditions we shall be pleased to carry out Mr Stevens’ instructions, and if we can lend the Committee any assistance shall be pleased to do so,—Kd. H.]