ORATORY CONTEST

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 November 1941, Page 6

ORATORY CONTEST

MASTERTON SECONDARY SCHOOLS DETAILS ..OF JUDGING. SPEAKERS AND SUBJECTS. Cn Saturday evening, the annual inter-school speech competition was held in the Assembly Hail at St. Matthew’s Collegiate School. The following are the speakers and their subjects:— , St. Matthew’s School: M. D. Maunsell, “Leonardo da Vinci”; S. Harrison, "R. L. Stevenson.” Wairarapa College: R. Hanley, “Father Damien”; D. Cooper, “T. E. Lawrence.” St. Bride’s Convent: B. Mabey, “St. Francis of Assisi”; Y. Sanders, “Florence Nightingale.” Solway College: M. McCulloch, “Mahomet”; E. Bodkin, “Aimee Dubuc de Rivey.” Mr Jordan judged the competition and placed St. Bride’s Convent first and St. Matthew’s School second. The best individual speaker was B. Mabey. - Mr Jordan commented on the good choice of subjects, and spoke of the necessity for a speaker to be completely sincere in order to convince her audience. A common fault of the competitions was a tendency to emphasise the wrong words, and also tb drop their voices. There was no need for young speakers to be declamatory. Plain and simple English should always be used, and important parts of the speech must not be hurried. When proposing a vote of thanks, Mrs Cleghorn said that Mr Jordan’s criticism had been very helpful. Shccongratulated the winners.