WHAT IS A “HOWLER?"

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 4, 25 April 1914, Page 7

WHAT IS A “HOWLER?"

In the course of an instructive and entertaining lecture to teachers at the Sunday School I uion, London, Dr. John Aduing said a howler was a mistaken answer honestly given, and having a certain foundation. If a boy was asked,“What is the capital of Palestine?” and replied: “Ten miles,” that was not a howler ; it showed that the hoy was not attending, or was impudent. But if a hoy was asked: “W,hy ,is Madame Patti called the Welsh nightingale?” and replied, “Because she sings at night,” that was not a foolish answer. :wA friend of his asked his pupils what they knew about Eleanor of Poitou. No one knew anything, but at last one boy volunteered: “She was very fat.” The teacher did not know how fat or how lean she was, but the hoy stuck to it that “it was in the hook,” and pointed to the place where it said: “Among Henry’s stoutest supporters .” That was a genuine howler. Dr. Adams pointed out that the joke was always with the teacher, and was not made by the pupil. A boy was asked, “What is the difference between a window and a widow?” He began: “You can see through a window”then ho stopped. But the lad did not mean to make a joke at all. The professor advised Sunday school teachers'Pot to laugh at howlers, but to make good use of them, and to get at the root of them, so that the misapprehension which caused the error might he removed.