NELSON COLLEGE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 299, 16 December 1872, Page 2

NELSON COLLEGE.

The prizes were distributed at the College by his Honor the Superintendent on Friday afternoon, in the presence of the Governors and a large assemblage of ladies and gentlemen. The-pro-ceedings commenced by the examiner, the H'ev. S. Poole. reading his report, irorn which the following are extracts: — CLASSICS. . In English the boys have displayed more than ordinary proficiency, not only as regards the knowledge of the grammatical structure and idiomatic beauties of the language, but also as regards its history and more ancient iorm?. Chaucer has been studied, I believe, with great pains, and the particular mode of instruction, producing mental habits of criticism, has led to that improvement in English composition which has taken place since my last examination in 1870. The translations from Tacitus, Livy, Ca)3ar, Terence, and Vireil were received by me not merely as evidences of classical knowledge, but also as tests oi English composition. lam happy to state that the majority of the boys in the Upper Forms did well, but fceverne, Roy. and Gully of the sixth iorm particularly distinguished themselves, whilst A. B. Campbell, of Form V, excelled ail the boys of his own division, and was quite equal to the senior bojs in his English papers. Jn 3?orm IV, Maclean won the first place for general proficiency, trough Watts I. contested every inch of ground with him in Latin and Greek. The English in the Lower Forms is as. satisfactory as that of the Upper, though it is not so advanced The text of J^iakespeare's Macbeth was used in this department, and the auswers to my questions were very creditable to teacher and pupils. In Latin the subjects were Tacitus, Livy, Caesar, Terence, Virgil's Georgics, and second iEneid, Smith's Latin Prmcipiaand Composition. The boys seemed well grounded in the principles of the language, and construed, as well as translated, with taste and accuracy, ISeverne being a Primus inter pares. . With regard to Greek, I may mention that I took the upper boys in Thucydides, and they were able to construe one of the difficult speeches in the sixth book. ' Severne, Gully, and Campbell I did their portions remarkably veil. I findt hat the standard of Greek is higher than it has ever been ' French is by no means neglected, as the boys were able to make a very fair translation from a portion of Telmnaqae, which they had never seen before, without the aid of a dictionary, and the junior scholars did an exercise from Ann's, and answered grammatical questions. Of History I have much .to relate, but I can only briefly express ray opinion on the very f u&essful manner in which it is taught by the Head Master. For the Stafford Schalajsbip, Severne was facile princeps, and I would mention Koy, Campbell I, and fcpeed as worthy of great commendation. I have paid particular attention to the boys m

Mr Toml'iDsoD^cp department, and find they are Jbeing well, taught^irv arithmetic, English, history, /anil the'elqmen£s)off£ti.tin, . The discipline offtbk •VCoilege iii all'lta^divi^ioTis it very good, flindVa /gentlemanly spirit iberyadcs the school froni thte 'highest to the lowest class. ; *' MATHEMATICS AND PHYSICS. I have examined in arithmetic, algebra, Euclid, trigonometry, statics, dynamics, and physical geogr&phy. The first three subjects' are as well taught as ever they were. To mention the names of all the good arithmeticians would bo to lengthen my report. The papers of Wither I, were pre-eminently good. In Euclid the general proficiency was so remarkable lhat I am inclined to believe that Mr Mackay is the modern representative of the Platonic School, lor no one enters this school who is not a geometrician. The boys are well taught, and the intellectual training must induce habits of attention which are highly conducive to other studies. The algebra has been excellent. My difficult problems, in the solution of which I expected to find many failures, were done with perfect ta3e. In this branch Severne distinguished himself. ■: Trigonometry, taught according to Colenso, has had more justice done to it thau on former occasions. There has been considerable progress since 1870, and I am glad to find that this somewhat uninteresting study with its endless manipulations of formula) has been so well mastered by JUlackett, Severne, Wither, Campbell I, Hichardson, and Kichmond 11. . It has been with much pleasure that I have witnessed the addition of Fiiysics lo the mathematical studies. M. Ganot's work is the textbook, than which I believe, there could Dot be a betttr. A very great deal of this large subject could; not reasonably be expected, But what has been, done deseryes approbation. Scverne's papers were excellent, and next to his came Withers. I have to record again the progress of Physical Geography. Many names that did not come uppermost in other subjects appeared in this. Among the junior boys I received very good answers from Harkness, Pollock I, and more especially from Atkiason, who for his age is a boy of remarkable ability. . , . The prizes and scholarships will give the names of the most distinguished in mathematics. His Honor the Sdpebinteni>em said that the students and the public were largely indebted to Mr Poole lor the trouble he had taken. in the examinations He was very pleased to find' that the study of the English language, which was frequently treated as a matter of secondary importance had not been neglected in the College training but that the students had shown considerable proficiency in it. He was cure that the institution of scholarships, not only by private individuals and the Provincial Government, but by the University, were calculated to produce lriosE favorable results. -■ So long as we were altogether dependent on the Australian and English Universities it the rich alone tint could reap any benefit, but he hoped that the time was not far off when young men born and educated in New Zealand would be able to compete for posts of honor and trust with those from any other part of the world. He could not refrain from referring with the utmost gratification to the result of the Hr?t examination lor the University Scholarships, in which Nelson, if the population of the Province were taken into consideration, occupied the highest position in the colony. The University had been in great danger in the last session of the assembly when attempts were made to abolish it; and establish two others in its place, as it was thought they would answer better than . one colonial iustitution. . He differed from those who thought thus, as it was only the richer classes who could afford to send their sons to Auckland or Dunedin, besides, degrees awarded by a colonial University would carry with them far greater weight than those granted by merely local iustitutions He had been much gratified to find at the late ses-ion of the Assembly a young man born and educated in New Zealaod taking his place in. the House, and in the course of a couple of monihs occupying a higher position there than

had ever been reached in a simil draper iotl by any other member. j!.Tliat..:\yas most encouraging, as sjio^jng ■wiiat niight.:be;^one by>oj£|i£(forts. His Ilouor ihenrreferred toJthe 'desirability of establishing 'oil a\La.dies' . College; in connection with ou¥ present institution, and expresstd'a hope that the University might be induced to lend its oM if the Governor took th<* matter in hand and were dispobed to render their assistance. Many -of the boys he then saw around h:m would, he supposed, in the course of a few years be taking to themselves wives, who would not be thought less of by them had they possessed educational advantages equal to those ebjoyed by their husbands. He trusted the Governors would give the subject their earnest attention Mr Simmohs wished to thank Mr Curtis for his address! and especially for that portion of it which referred to the teaching of the English language at the College. Be had taken muph itroiible , wi h it because he believed it to be the'noble.'t of languages, and one whieli should form the most attractive stuiy for Jnglishmea, although he was sorry to sny many of them were very ignorant of it. He had been much disappointed to find that more prominence had not been accorded to it in the examination for the University scholarships, and trusted that for the future the Council would insist upon the examination under this he;id being most searching. It was more important for an Englishman to be thoroughly acquainted -with his own language and literature than with Greek or Latin, although he believed very ' much in these, the latter especially, as leading to a more complete understanding of English, notwithstanding that there were some few exceptions such »s John Bright, and Hugh Miller, who were perfect masters of Englbh without knowing much of 'the dead languages. There was one thing to which he wished to call attention before sitting down, namely, that a lnrge number of the prize-takers on the present occ»sion were boys who had come to the College from the Government schools, having been enabled to do so by the scholarship i offered to them by the , For remainder, sen fourth page.