THE SCHOLARSHIP OGRE. Awful "Posers" for Young Brains.

Free Lance, Volume IV, Issue 186, 23 January 1904, Page 6

THE SCHOLARSHIP OGRE. Awful " Posers " for Young Brains.

IF corre t answers to the questions put to the youthful students m the recent scholarship examinations won for them a scholarship, how many more such questions would win for them a place m a lunatic asylum? Enough of the questions have been published to convince the average man that he would have to tram hard to answer any of them. Perhaps, the scholars may, m their future business or professional life, have some use for the knowledge they have had to gorge m order to qualify for a place, but most probably not. If the examination papers had been set merely with the object of ensnaring little bays and girls, or of working their young brains to a standstill, they ought to have been fairly successful. # * *■ Anyhow, it is reasonable to suppose that the children who are full to the forelock with abstruse knowledge will endeavour to forget it as soon as possible when a living has to be earned by simpler mental methods than those employed. It is impossible for a tender child to look upon the propounder of a needlessly harassing question as anything else than an ogre, who is panting for his intellectual blood, and the

fact that boys and girls — particularly girls — had "swatted" the requisite knowledge to enable them to luxuriate m a scholarship, says a great deal for the application of the young New"Zealander. * » • As far as we understand the necessity of education, it should fit a boy or girl for the place he or she has tooccupy in business or social life. The average person isn't in the least concerned about the population of -a stupid spot in the wildsi of Central Africa, or the number of gallons of water that would drip into a tank a square mile in extent and ten feet deep, in twenty-four hours, the drips being estimated at one six-grain drip per minute. But, examinationpaper writers have probably used up all the really practical questions in. former years, and have to keep up their reputation for learning and "depth." We simply regard the winners of the scholarships as sufferers, who have battled through a horrid nightmare successfully, and not a whit better boys or girls thanthey were before the ogre put his questions. If their minds ever work into an ordinary, practical, every-day useful groove again it will surprise * * * The Lance has often advocated theabolition of questions on subjects that serve absolutely no useful purpose if answered. We submit that an examination of pupils m the events of the past year as set out in the press would have a more useful effect than the examination of pupils m the many side paths of alleged intellectuality. We submit that future examination-papers for scholarship entrants should be prepared by a Board composed of the ordinary intellectual giants who have, up to now, set them, helped by men of commonplace attainments, who hold the highest positions in the business, social, and economic life of the colony. To have "swatted" the necessary learning, those young scholars simply had to ignore their physical needs. If we are to stop the decreasing birth-rate, produce practical men and women, and keep youngstersin touch with their everyday environments, we shall have to go slow on the kind of education tha will soon produce mental blindness.