Posted on 11/28/2004 5:50:10 AM PST by snarks_when_bored
Dumbing down: the proof
As a service to Spectator readers who still have any doubts about the decline in educational standards, we are printing these exam papers taken by 11-year-olds applying for places to King Edward’s School in Birmingham in 1898.
ENGLISH GRAMMAR
1. Write out in your best handwriting:—
‘O Mary, go and call the cattle home,
And call the cattle home,
And call the cattle home,
Across the sands o’ Dee.’
The western wind was wild and dank with foam,
And all alone went she.The western tide crept up along the sand,
And o’er and o’er the sand,
And round and round the sand,
As far as eye could see.
The rolling mist came down and hid the land —
And never home came she.2. Parse fully ‘And call the cattle home.’
3. Explain the meaning of o’ Dee, dank with foam, western tide, round and round the sand, the rolling mist.
4. Write out separately the simple sentences in the last two lines of the above passage and analyse them.
5. Write out what you consider to be the meaning of the above passage.
GEOGRAPHY
1. On the outline map provided, mark the position of Carlisle, Canterbury, Plymouth, Hull, Gloucester, Swansea, Southampton, Worcester, Leeds, Leicester and Norwich; Morecambe Bay, The Wash, Solent, Menai Straits and Lyme Bay; St Bees Head, The Naze, Lizard Point; the rivers Trent and Severn; Whernside, the North Downs, and Plinlimmon; and state on a separate paper what the towns named above are noted for.
2. Where are silver, platinum, tin, wool, wheat, palm oil, furs and cacao got from?
3. Name the conditions upon which the climate of a country depends, and explain the reason of any one of them.
4. Name the British possessions in America with the chief town in each. Which is the most important?
5. Where are Omdurman, Wai-Hei-Wai, Crete, Santiago, and West Key, and what are they noted for?
LATIN
1. Write in columns the nominative singular, genitive plural, gender, and meaning of:— operibus, principe, imperatori, genere, apro, nivem, vires, frondi, muri.
2. Give the comparative of noxius, acer, male, diu; the superlative of piger, humilis, fortiter, multum; the English and genitive sing. of solus, uter, quisque.
3. Write these phrases in a column and put opposite to each its Latin: he will go; he may wish; he had; he had been; he will be heard; and give in a column the English of fore, amatum, regendus, monetor.
4. Give in columns the perfect Indic. and active supine of ago, pono, dono, cedo, jungo, claudo.
Mention one example each of verbs followed by the nominative, the accusative, the genitive, the dative, the ablative.
5. Translate into Latin:—
1. The general’s little son was loved by the soldiers.6. Translate into English:—
2. Let no bodies be buried within this city.
3. Ask Tullius who found the lions.
4. He said that the city had been taken, and, the war being finished, the forces would return.Exceptus est imperatoris adventus incredibili honore atque amore: tum primum enim veniebat ab illo Aegypti bello. Nihil relinquebatur quod ad ornatum locorum omnium qua iturus erat excogitari posset.
ENGLISH HISTORY
1. What kings of England began to reign in the years 871, 1135, 1216, 1377, 1422, 1509, 1625, 1685, 1727, 1830?
2. Give some account of Egbert, William II, Richard III, Robert Blake, Lord Nelson.
3. State what you know of — Henry II’s quarrel with Becket, the taking of Calais by Edward III, the attempt to make Lady Jane Grey queen, the trial of the Seven bishops, the Gordon riots.
4. What important results followed — the raising of the siege of Orleans, the Gunpowder plot, the Scottish rebellion of 1639, the surrender at Yorktown, the battles of Bannockburn, Bosworth, Ethandune, La Hogue, Plassey, and Vittoria?
5. How are the following persons connected with English History,— Harold Hardrada, Saladin, James IV of Scotland, Philip II of Spain, Frederick the Elector Palatine?
ARITHMETIC
1. Multiply 642035 by 24506.
2. Add together £132 4s. 1d., £243 7s. 2d., £303 16s 2d., and £1.030 5s. 3d.; and divide the sum by 17. (Two answers to be given.)
3. Write out Length Measure, and reduce 217204 inches to miles, &c.
4. Find the G.C.M. of 13621 and 159848.
5. Find, by Practice, the cost of 537 things at £5 3s. 71/2d. each.
6. Subtract 37/16 from 51/4; multiply 63/4 by 5/36; divide 43/8 by 11/6; and find the value of 21/4 of 12/3 of 13/5.
7. Five horses and 28 sheep cost £126 14s., and 16 sheep cost £22 8s.; find the total cost of 2 horses and 10 sheep.
8. Subtract 3.25741 from 3.3; multiply 28.436 by 8.245; and divide .86655 by 26.5.
9. Simplify 183/4 – 22/3 ÷ 11/5 – 31/2 x 4/7.
10. Find the square root of 5.185,440,100.
11. Find the cost of papering the walls of a room 16ft long, 13ft 6in. wide, and 9ft high, with paper 11/2ft wide at 2s. 3d. a piece of 12yds in length.
12. A and B rent a number of fields between them for a year, the rent and other expenses amounting to £108 17s. 6d. A puts in 2 horses, 5 oxen and 10 sheep; and B puts in 4 horses, 1 ox, and 27 sheep. If a horse eats as much as 3 sheep and an ox as much as 2 sheep, how much should A and B each pay?
These papers were kindly sent in by Humphrey Stanbury, whose father took the exam, and passed.
Ping away, stockpirate can handle the reading!!!!
[singing] "Yo, ho, yo, ho, the pirate's life's for me..."
YOu got it! :-)
You're welcome, SunkenCiv.
"On the outline map provided, mark the position of Carlisle, Canterbury, Plymouth, Hull, Gloucester, Swansea, Southampton, Worcester, Leeds, Leicester and Norwich; Morecambe Bay, The Wash, Solent, Menai Straits and Lyme Bay; St Bees Head, The Naze, Lizard Point; the rivers Trent and Severn; Whernside, the North Downs, and Plinlimmon; and state on a separate paper what the towns named above are noted for."
Well . . . except at COld Harbor.
The way it used to be WHERE?Late Victorian England.
"5. Where are Omdurman, Wai-Hei-Wai, Crete, Santiago, and West Key, and what are they noted for?"
I think they're all living in Los Angeles now, and last I heard bond was set at $25,000 each.
Wow. I guess I'm just glad I was one of the last to be taught reading with phonics (in the early 70's).
As a private and home educating mother, this fascinates me. My 11yo will love reading this! He thinks HE has work...
>>Where are silver, platinum, tin, wool, wheat, palm oil, >>furs and cacao got from?
>Obviously the person who came up with this question failed >the grammar test.
How is it that such an idea has got abroad? Actually, you're judging 19th and even 18th century standards of grammer by our modern dumbed-down standards. Using ``...got from'' is actually proper English, for writings preceding circa 1950. By example you can see grammer like this used extensively in old writings like http://www.thomaspaine.org/Archives/AOR2.html Mr. paine being a prolific writer during and after the American Revolutionary war, his phamplet http://www.thomaspaine.org/Archives/commonsense.html provoked the war, and it uses such grammer. Writings of the other Founding Fathers are similar, as are many of the writings contained in collections like ``The Havard Classics'', of which are far too numerous to quote here. It's curious to note that these sort of writings were mandantory before 1900, but ignored by `educators' today. Even old movies regularly depicted the well-to-do using such grammer.
Perhaps we don't speak that way today, but who are we, products of a dumbed-down educational system, to judge the grammer of those who spoke and wrote far better than anyone now is capable of? We have so much too learn from people who lived prior to 1900, so perhaps we should spend more time learning proper English and many other things from them, and less critising their grammer of yesteryear.
Interesting comments about grammar.
My favorite books are those by William Law, Charles Finney, Andrew Murray, Elizabeth Prentiss, and other early Christian writers from the 1600's through the 1800's.
Just even their thought processes and ways of explanation are so rich. In fact, it took me a while before I could really get in the flow of Charles Finney's thinking. But once I did, it's been a delight to read.
The best words I can use to describe those early writers are depth and clarity. Such sound thinking! (I'm hoping it will rub off on me. I need it....)
Actually, I was commenting on the use of 'from' as a dangling participle. Nineteenth-century grammarians discouraged the use of prepositions at the ends of sentences as much as modern grammarians do today.
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