AUCKLANDERS DO CREDIT TO KING’S ENGLISH

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 400, 14 July 1928, Page 5

AUCKLANDERS DO CREDIT TO KING’S ENGLISH

EXAMINER PLEASED HIGH STANDARD SET Mr. C. Egerton Lowe, examiner in music and elocution for Trinity College of Music, London, who recently examined a large number of Auckland students, is of opinion that the average pass had been higher than he had known for some time. Lecturing last evening in the Lewis Eady Hall before 120 teachers of music and elocution, Mr. Lowe said that the pronunciation and deportment had been good and the reading had been particularly commendable, a result found rarely in the thousands of readers he had heard. Real dramatic power had been exhibited by many of the students in the Julius Caesar recitation. Mr. Lowe observed faults in the breathing of many competitors. “The only way to send your voice to tlie end of a hall is to keep your chest well packed with air and not wait for a breath until the end of a sentence,” he cautioned. Iq pronunciation, two words, particularly, gave trouble. “Children” was often pronounced “chooldren,” and “nature” sounded like “nayteher.” Another word often pronounced badly was “violet.” The word “wind” in poetry was never given a long vowel sound by English speakers now, he added, even when it rhymed with “kind.” It was an uhnatural form of expression and not in the least musical. The examiner employed the latter half of his lecture in a demonstration of pianoforte methods of fingering and wrist and arm movements.