WAR STUDENT SPEAKS HIS MIND

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 394, 10 January 1947, Page 5

WAR STUDENT SPEAKS HIS MIND

Sir,-After a period as a prisoner-of-war and a period with UNRRA, I returned to this country late this year. While a prisoner I got in touch with the Bodleian Library and asked them .to forward books so that I could study the New Zealand University Syllabus books for English I. On my return to New Zealand I contacted a correspondence school and continued the study of English with them. The school apologised and said that owing to the shortage of typists they had not been able to rewrite their notes to cover the work that would be set by the four University Colleges under the new system of internal examination; they hoped that papers for the next few years would be general enough to enable students handicapped by war work, to answer them and get a reasonable pass. The English I, paper a for B.A., Auckland University College, had threefifths of the questions set on Professor Sewell’s Practice of Prose. This book is undoubtedly an excellent one; unknown

to the Bodleian Library and unavailable to me as a prisoner-of-war, The danger of allowing each College to examine its own students will result in narrow teaching. The enthusiasms aroused by new freedoms generally die away and text-books now used in the four colleges will be replaced by those of the various professors and teachers. If the teaching staffs of the colleges are anxious to build a brave new world they should remember that there are still a few left working on the foundations. A new method of examining should be introduced gradually, or at least wait until the war has been officially declared ended.

SIX YEARS LATE

(Auckland).