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There was no viva voce examination.

It will be seen from the accompanying table, that Hartland has gained the highest number of marks, and that Gibson comes next: we have therefore to report that, these two boys stand first and second respectively.

We may state, that being without any information as to the standard of the examination of last year, we felt a difficulty in dealing with subjects of such wide and general extent, as those on which the candidates were to be questioned, and were apprehensive of falling into the error of adopting a standard, too high for the attainments of boys of the age of twelve, who had been brought up in the Colony.

It was therefore considered advisable to reduce the subjects to little more than elementary questions. For instance, the English paper does not go beyond a few strictly elementary questions in grammar, the paraphrasing of a piece of poetry, and the writing of a simple letter; the questions in Geography are such as may be learned from any book for the use of beginners. The Sacred History—no more than a few questions from the Old and New Testament, on such prominent portions as we assume to be taught in any school. The Ancient History—the same. The Modern History—a few leading points in the History of England. Mathematics—Arithmetic only. Classics—principally easy questions in Latin Grammar, and one or two extremely easy sentences to translate. The only questions in Greek are of the simplest kind, viz: naming the parts of speech, cases, numbers, and genders—the declension of the article, and any one Greek noun a boy might know.

Judging from the highest number of marks obtained in the gross total—viz: 243, out of 400—we conclude that the standard we thus adopted is a fair one.

As to particular parts of the examination, we have to make the following remarks:—

FIRST—THE ENGLISH PAPER.

Hartland’s answers are well and clearly written, and his examples in illustration of his answers are generally correct, and well-expressed; his paraphrase is fair, and his letter, as a whole, a good one; his geography however is not good; in common with all the others his knowledge of the geography of New Zealand is very defective. In no instance has an answer been correctly given to the question “into how many Provinces is the Colony of New Zealand divided,” nor are the Provinces named in any way approaching to correctness; only one boy, William Dixon, has given the date of the foundation of the Canterbury Settlement.

This boy Dixon has done remarkably well, but his extremely defective spelling lessens the value of his answers; he would otherwise have gained by far the highest number of marks in this paper. Gibson’s paper is fair, but he fails in his examples, and does not write so good a letter as the others; his geography, which is better—to some extent compensates for his deficiency in other respects. M’Cormick has done a good paper, nearly equal to Gibson, as his marks will show; his paraphrase is good, and his letter is fair. Waters will perhaps do better another year; so far as his answers go he has marked evenly for each, though not high. Reece has written his answers in a very hurried and apparently careless manner; his letter is fair, but the rest of his paper, particularly his geography, is very poor.

The boys, with the exception of Dixon, spell very satisfactorily, and their writing generally is good.

SECOND—SACRED HISTORY.

Dixon again has done by far the best; he shows a very accurate knowledge of Sacred History; the other boys have done fairly, with the exception of M’Cormick and Reece, who appear to be almost totally ignorant of their subject.