Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 January 1884 — Tough Questions for an English Schoolboy. [ARTICLE]

Tough Questions for an English Schoolboy.

In the interests of suffering humanity, as represented by boys of the tender age of 12 competing for scholarships at our public schools, permit me to lay before your readers some of the questions contained in an examination paper actually set at a public school of some standing: General Intelligence.—Paper 1. Explain briefly the terms Democracy, Oligarchy, Plutocracy, Pessimist, Anacronim, Swedenborgian, Free Trade, Reciprocity, Jingoism, Verve. 2. Write the names, of six of Sir W. Scott’s novels, and give a brief account of some of them. 3. Contrast the action of a cow and a horse in rising from a recumbent posture, and of the chaffinch and blackbird in flying. Why do sheep often graze on their knees ? 4. We read that the anchor lost by Columbus in his third voyage to the West has lately been dug up by a gentleman in his garden in the Island of Antigua. How could this be? 5. Mention some fact connected with each of the following names: Genseric, Mausolus, Diogenes, Michael Scot, Lord Bacon, Ravaillac, Strabo, Ivan the Terrible, Louise Michel. 6. Examine the value of the statements: (1) That the sun shining on a fire in the grate puts it out. (2) That a poker thrust into it makes it burn: (3) That a poker placed over an expiring fire will revive it. (4) That fire burns brighter in frosty weather. 7. What is a patent ? Mention some useful patent. Cqn you have a patent for a book ? What is a patent error ? 8. Explain what is meant by crusted port, art, old Dresden, alkaram, an heirloom, nepotism, the survival of .the fittest, abrasion of the cuticle. 9. If a shriveled apple be placed under an air-pump and the air exhausted, the apple gets plump. Explain particularly how this occurs. Most parents,. I think, will agree with me that any criticism of this remarkable production is superfluous. The fault of it from beginning to end lies in the fact that it demands from a boy of 12 an amount of observation and experience utterly unnatural at his age. —A Private Tutor, in London Standard.