They Scored

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 34, 24 August 1905, Page 17

They Scored

In the middle seventies a mania of spelling-toees seized a goodly portion of the English-speaking world and got it down and worried- it. But it wrought mtipli educational good among both .young and middle-aged and old— for they were all smitten ; and, incidentally, it led to a movement for that spelling-reform which the English language needs as sorely as Chinese needs the abandonment of its hieroglyphic (or rather ideographic) writing. Over in Bendigo (Victoria) the spelling-bee was recently revived. A public competition took place in the local Masonic Hall. The ' Advocate's- 7 correspondent reports that 195 competitors entered for the two prizes from the various schools in the city. ' Gut of that number,' says our Melbourne contemporary, ' after the first round 'of exanKna'tlkyn, seven were selected as having specially distinguished themselves.' The seven children were from the two local Catholic schools. Surprise was (says the ' Advocate ') expressed at the result, and it was all the greater as ' the words selected for competition were all taken from the State school books.'