316
Of the 5 questions set to III B., a certain boy only attempts one to which he replies as follows:-
is a cape in Baltic Sea.
Trafalgar
Kattegat
White Sea.
""
;}
Sevastopol
Arctic Ocean.
51
Marengo
Arctic Ocean.
11
35
Copenhagen
"1
"
Hanover
Baltic Sea.
Vittoria
Mediterranean Sea.
Mediterranean Sea.
1)
Arctic Ocean.
19
Arctic Ocean.
**
"5
North Sea.
19
North Sea.
15
Luebeck
Bergen Metz Fontenoy
""
We cannot
This paper may be taken as a fair specimen of much rubbish which was submitted to us, explain the curious tendency of many boys to make the Arctic Ocean a lumber-room for unrecognized localities.
Shakespeare-The play offered was Henry V and the only 2 forms which took this subject were N. 1 and I A.B. They obtained respectively 66% and 24% of passes. The non-Chinese form was as a whole very much superior to the Chinesc form, though the paper of HUNG HING KAM in the latter form was most excellent. In N. 1 the paper of GHULAMALI was equally good. Shakespeare, however, appears to be beyond the understanding of Chinese boys.
71
"}
as
Grammar. -In N. 1 the percentage of passes was very high, and the boys showed a sound know- ledge of the subject. The papers of II A. and III A. were also good, but the other forms were mediocre, if not bad. In N. 4 the feminine of "deer" is variously given as swine, antelope, stag, deeress and heifer; of "marquis" as marquichess, inarquiness, mergius, marquess, and marquii; of "peacock" as weathercock and henpeacock; of "fox" as foxess, bitch and victim. In II A.B. the masculine of "bitch" appears as wizard, tib, buck, fox, wretch, witzer, show, tom and tom-bitch; of "hen' boak and cork; of “ mare as maress, scullion, dota, filly, ewe, hare, staline, hiefer, ballien, ram, stallon; and of "sow" as sow-pig, bore-pig, sower, big, swine, bor, pock, sore, bull, belle, and horse. In III A.B. the plural of "formula" is given as formulix, formulea, formulii, formulous, formule, formuless, formulx, formuliis, formulee, formuli, formulars and formulaes; of "dictum as dictumoes, dictumes, dictia, dictans, data, dictumess, dictas, dictumaa, dictor, dictumies. "Concord" is defined to be "that which does not depend upon anything else." The comparative and superlative degrees of "ill" are given as “sick," "sickness."
K
17
Composition. In classes I A.B. and N. 1 the test was essay-writing, and the boys were given a choice between three subjects. The Chinese boys seem to have little idea of how an essay should be written, and the difference between them and the non-Chinese boys is strikingly shown in the per- centages which are respectively 10 % and 75 %. In N. 1 GHULAMALI's style and appreciation of his subject was noticeable. The repeated use of the personal pronoun by many of the boys was very offensive, and such sentences as "There are many others proofs of the use of newspapers.
Please excuse. I am ignorant "are in essay-writing to be deprecated.
In the other classes a short story was slowly read to the boys and they were required to repro- duce it from memory. N. 2. II A. and III A. show percentages of passes, and the work of SOLOMON, WONG PAK HING, and Ho YAN SIK was creditable, but in many cases evidently little was understood and even less was reproduced. N. 3 and II B. were particularly bad. On this subject we must again refer to the comments of the examiners of 1897.
·
Mensuration.This subject was only offered by I A.B. We have to thank Lt. BAGNALL-WILD, R.E., for both setting and correcting papers. The percentage of passes is 50. Two boys-CHUNG TAT MAN and HUNG HING KAM-obtained full marks, whereas 2 other boys obtained no marks at all.
Algebra.-There was a great difference in the standard of the papers set to the different forms. The Chinese boys on the whole show greater capacity for mathemetics than the Non-Chinese. We were especially struck by the work of CHUNG TAT MAN (I A.B.), who seems to us very promising. In N. 1, ISMAIL was creditable, while in III A. and III B, 6 and 7 boys respectively obtain full marks. The discrepancy between boys, not necessarily at the top and bottom of a given form, is astonishing; for example in I A.B. where several boys do cerditably, 6 boys fail to reach double figures; while in III B. the variation is between full marks and no marks. This is apparent in almost every subject.
Euclid.-Again the Chinese boys proved superior to the Non-Chinese. In a searching paper HUNG HING KAM (I A.B.) gained full marks, answering 2 riders correctly. Much of the mathema- tical work is very neat. But boys who fail frequently show that they do not know the meaning of such elementary terms as base, triangle, angle, etc. For example one boy concludes by stating that "the base of the triangle is equal to 2 triangles. Q. E. D." We were far too often informed that
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