Higher French.

66

The translation from French into English was fairly well done in the majority of cases. Many, however, have done this part of the paper in a very careless manner, which in some instances caused ludicrous mistakes, e.g.: mouvements de terrain" (lb) becomes earthquakes and even earthquaky motions; "vive hirondelle" (1c) gay lark or cheeky sparrow; troupeaux epars", troops or bands playing far away.

The translation from English into French brought out strongly all the weak points of candidates, only ten of them succeeding in securing more than half of the marks allotted to Question 2, a, b. As for the rest, they seem to vie with one another in displaying their ignorance of the most elementary rules of grammar, and the result is an incredible medley of senseless mistakes: subjects in the singular with verbs in the plural and vice versa; masculine nouns with qualifying feminine adjectives; words coined to suit the occasion; finally, no order whatever in the construction of sentences It would take pages to enumerate all the mistakes. Students who present themselves for the Higher Public should study composition seriously. Constant practice and reading of good French works are the sine qua non condition to success. Many of the failures this are due to bad composition.

year

The answers to the questions on grammar are also far from satisfactory. Too many candidates have failed altogether in their attempts to treat Question 3, e, f, g. Very few of them had a knowledge of the history of the language. One candidateacknowledged frankly that this subject bad not been included in his or her preparation; others made some wild attempts at solving the riddle, e.g.: "proverbe' is a feminine word because it comes from the Latin prefix 'pro' and the French word 'verbe""; or again, "it is derived from the English word 'proverb' by adding an 'e' mute"; "chat' is derived from the English word 'cat'; the 'h' being put in for the sake of euphony"; "ours', a feminine word from Latin ‘urum', a boar"; or again, "a word from the Latin 'noster, -a, -um "".

The vocabulary is generally very weak, eg.: The feminine of "gendre" is "la gendre"; "tige" means tiger-lily or tigress or tick! etc.

Yet, in spite of all these blunders, there are evident traces of good materials in the majority of the papers; but the preparation-or perhaps the training-seems to be very defective.

Future candidates are recommended to avoid making a hasty and superficial preparation in French for the Higher Public.

Higher Chemistry.

The theoretical papers call for no comment, being on the whole satisfactory. The errors were rather those of omission than of commission.

As regards the practical work, the criticisms made in last year's report as regards method of analysis still apply in many

.cases.

Higher Physical Geography and Geology.

The candidates had for the most part memorized their subject fairly well, but showed deficiency in thinking out the main points of the questions. For example, in dealing with the geological conditions under which the canyon type of drainage is produced it is surprising how few grasped the main factors involved in canyon formation, such as the uniform features and horizontal position of the beds. Again, in the determination of the relative age of mountain ranges on physical grounds, the main evidences, based on the measure of denudation and consequent alteration of the system of drainage, were scarcely recognized at all. The drawings to illustrate this question were very unsatisfactory. The greatest shortcomings were in the practical exercises. The drawing of geological sections was far below what might fairly be expected from students in the Higher Public Examination, and there is also evidence that the candidates have very limited opportunities of becoming acquainted with our common rocks and minerals. The specimens submitted for determination were as follows: 1 Traverture nodule, 2 Halite (rock salt), 3 Asbestos (var. mountain leather), 4 Basalt, 5 Aplite vein in granite, 6 Calcareous tufa, 7 Chalcedonic pseudomorph, 8 Chloritic slate (phyllite), 9 Calcite (rhombohedral), 10 Čerrusite.

Junior Commercial Examination.

Junior Commercial Arithmetic.

Although, as is shown by the results, the majority of the .candidates succeeded in answering most of the questions correctly, the papers were to a large extent spoiled by slovenliness. In a very large number of cases the working of the examples

was set down in such a careless, unmethodical way that it was very difficult for the examiners to make head or tail of the method of working. Many candidates lost marks through this, particularly in cases where the result was wrong. Often no marks could be awarded for method, the working being a mere unintelligible jumble of figures. The whole of the working of an arithmetical example may be set out in a perfectly clear and logical fashion, and unless teachers insist upon this being done by their pupils the educational value of arithmetic is very greatly diminished.

Junior Commercial Geography.

It is satisfactory to note that most of the points mentioned in last year's report have received attention. Handwriting shows greater legibility, spelling has improved, and the answers have been set out with greater clearness. It is evident, too, that intelligent work is not subordinated to learning by rote, but that an attempt has been made to rationalize the many details of this subject.

It is not so encouraging, however, to note that little improvement is shown in knowledge of the materials of commerce, and the examiner fears that the paragraph dealing with this matter in the last report has been overlooked. Kauri gum is used, according to some of the candidates, for making roads, for the erection of buildings, for firewood, for palings, as an ornamental wood for the covering of pianos, for sticking, and for eating; cinchona was said to be useful for making sago, as an essence for flavouring foods, for making rubber articles, as a valuable dye, as a beverage; and few candidates remembered that tobacco was used for other purposes than smoking. In many cases, too, countries of production and of consumption were apparently put down haphazard.

Question 3, asking for an account of the Murray basin from the commercial point of view, received replies of remarkable range in merit, from that of the candidate who said "The Murray River starts in South Australia, runs through Victoria into New South Wales, when it is called the Darling", to the four page reply of a candidate who had apparently followed the recent newspaper articles and collected data for an essay on the subject. It is true the text-book does not say much about the Murray basin; still the fact that some candidates take so great an interest in such a subject as to make it a hobby is bound to tell against those who are merely content to cram

up the text-book. The map-drawing ranged from very good to decidedly bad; the average was very fair.

In Question 5 few candidates mentioned the discovery of America; several gave good accounts of the results of opening the Cape route to India.

The chief fault in the replies to Question 6 was the absence of a sense of proportion. Comparatively unimportant countries were dealt with in detail, while the larger wheat-producing lands were given scant attention. A rather frequent error was the placing of Australia high on the list. A useful little book, which ought to be in the hands of every teacher is Edgar's Story of a grain of wheat (Newnes. 18.)

Question 7 was fairly well answered. It is plain, however, that candidates are not accustomed to look upon towns as knots in an industrial and commercial network, to ask what are their connections with the surrounding country and the neighbouring towns, and why the converging lines should converge at these particular places. Many candidates stated that Genoa was a port of Italy; of what value is this information compared with that given by the candidate who saw Genoa in close connection with the railway systems of Central Europe and the steamship routes of the Mediterranean ? Ports ought to be looked upon as outlets and inlets for hinderlands, not as isolated dots on a map about which uninteresting statements have to be committed to memory. Isolated facts are of no use, educationally speaking. Emphasis ought, therefore, to be laid not on the fact itself but on the system of facts, and this can best be done by making the subject taught of interest to the learner. The word "Hull" appearing in the daily paper will then no longer be unnoticed, but will be of interest as having behind it a number of interesting ideas which readily combine with the new fact presented.

Junior Commercial Bookkeeping.

The proportion both of passes and credits is encouraging, and the average character of the answers shows a satisfactory standard of technical teaching. The papers included questions of a sufficient variety to test the general knowledge of the students, and I was pleased to note on this occasion a larger number of students than previously competent to prepare correctly statements of profit and loss accounts and balancesheets.

Junior Commercial Business Correspondence and Précis Writing.

The papers in Business Correspondence showed a decided general improvement on previous years in the desirable direction of a more practical business-like style of composition. The marks bring to light a very uniform and fairly good standard of ability in this branch.

Précis Writing was introduced for the first time in this year's papers, and the majority of the answers were commendable in respect to knowledge of the objects and form of précis work.

It may be useful in view of the recent introduction of this subject into the Junior Commercial Examination to indicate for the guidance of teachers and students that a précis is a shortened statement or summary of the contents of letters or other documents, presenting their principal or essential points in a clear and connected form so as to convey the full purport while omitting minor details. Practice will much assist the students and the following text-books are helpful: LawfordJones's Indexing and précis writing (Pitman and Sons), and Jackson and Briggs's Text-book of précis writing (Cambridge University Press).