MARITIME ESSAYS COMPETITION

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 307, 5 February 1910, Page 7

MARITIME ESSAYS COMPETITION

The Taranaki Education Board has received the following circular from the Education Department, and copies will be forwarded to the various schools in the district: — "The British and Foreign Sailors' Society of London, established for promoting the welfare of sailors at home and abroad, offers to give annually, for some years, to members of Schools in the dominion, artistic copper plaques, suitably inscribed bearing the King's initials, for the best essays upon a subject relating to maritime affairs. "Some vears ago the Society received from the Lords of the Admiralty a gift of all the oak and copper removed from I-I.M.S. Victory in the process' of repairing damages caused by her collision with the old battleship Neptune. About the same time the Society also secured all the copper remaining from Nelson's old flagship Foudrovant, which had then keen broken up,' and from the material obtained from these two sources the plaques and some other Nelson mementoes) issued by the Society are manufactured. "For the year 1910 four plaques are offered, the subject of the ess-.\v being " Arctic Explorers and the Benefits arising from their Discoveries,with v map of° the regions surrounding the North Pole, and the Minister of Education, to whom the offer has been made, has prescribed the following conditions for the competition: — 1. The piaques will he awarded to a boy and to a girl both in the North Island and in the South Island. 2. Competitors must be under sixteen years of age on the 31st of May next. 8. The essays, which must not exceed one thousand words, must be forwarded to the Education Board of the district (or, in the ease of Native Schools and Special Schools to the Education Department direct) on or before 31st May next. The envelope is to bear the words "Arctic Essay." 4. The essays must be written in school without notes, text-books, or _as- *' sistance from the teacher. lhe map may be prepared at home, but in drawing it the pupil must receive no help from parents err others. 0. The number of essays from the boys of any one school, or from the girls of the same school, is limited to two, or at the most three. G. On the last page of each essay must he sho*n the full name of the writer, his or her age, the name of the school, the island in which the school is situated, and a certificate by the head teacher that ■the conditions herein imposed in regard to both the essay and the map have been fully complied with. "As the essays have to be sent to London, it is not expected that the results will be known before the end of the present year."