SUBJECTS SET FOR THE IRISH INTERMEDIATE EXAMINATIONS, 1892 TO 1902

PREPARATORY GRADE.-Age, 12 to 14.

(Raised in 1902 to 13 to 15.)

1892. The Advantages of being Able to Govern.

venture, nothing have.'

1893. A Country Drive, or Walk, in Winter.

Marvel.' An Irish Fairy Tale.

1894. There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore.'

'Nothing

'Use lessens

Describe an Imaginary Balloon Voyage. Compare a Life of Idleness with a Life of Activity and Work.

1895. The Best Mode of Spending a Winter's Evening. Fidelity of Animals to Men. The Advantages of Contentment.

1896. —Any Deed of Heroism that has interested you. Mountain Scenery. Home, Sweet Home.

1897.-Any Great Disaster, on Sea or Land, which has interested you. Some of the Uses of Iron. 'Waste not, want not.' 1898. The Pleasures of Gardening. Your Favourite Animal. School Punishments. The Good Old Days.

1899.-The Country you would most Like to Visit, and for what Reasons. 'Be just, and fear not.' Contrast the Appearance of the Country in Spring and Autumn.

1900.-Recollections of your Early Life. A Dream (real or imaginary).

'Breathes there a man, with soul so dead,

Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native land!'

1901.-The Story of an Eventful Day in History, or in your own Life. A Boarding School or a Day School: which do you think better, and why?

'O, it is excellent

To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous

To use it like a giant.'

1902.-Solitude.

JUNIOR GRADE.-Age, 14 to 16.

1892.-The Way in which you propose to Spend the Summer Holidays.

'Variety's the very spice of life,

That gives it all its flavour.'

1893.-Irish Song Birds. 'A kind action is never lost.' Α Famous Fight by Sea or Land.

1894.-Animal Pets. Ulysses. 'Necessity is the mother of

invention.'

1895.-What Profession or Business would you like to adopt, and Why? The Importance of Trifles. 'Slow rises worth by poverty depressed.'

1896.- 'Do not defer 'till morrow to be wise,

To-morrow's sun to thee may never rise.'

The Lifeboat Service, its Advantages and Dangers. A
Summer Holiday on the River.

1897.-The Educational Advantages of Travel. The Games you most Enjoy. A Good Name is better than Great Riches.

1898. Your Idea of a Hero. A Ghost Story.

'Hope

1899.-Your Notion of a True Friend. A Description of any good Football or Cricket Match that you have seen. springs eternal in the human breast.'

1900.-The relative Advantages of the Horse and the Bicycle. Photography. 'A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.'

1901.-Cruelty to Animals. The Perils and Pleasures of Life at Sea. No pains, no gains.' The Influence of Music.

1902.-The Pen in Addison's Time was a more formidable engine than the Tongue. Narrow-mindedness. The Sacrifice of Enoch Arden.

MIDDLE GRADE.-Age, 16 to 17.

1892. Punctuality.

'Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,

These three alone lead life to sovereign power.'

Cardinal Wolsey.

1893.- 'Obedience is the bond of rule.' (Morte d'Arthur). "Tis distance lends enchantment to the view.'

(Campbell).

Relate the Incidents of a Heroic Deed with which you

are familiar.

1894.-Life at the Equator. The Influence of Literature on Social

Life.

'Absence of occupation is not rest,

A mind quite vacant is a mind distrest.'

1895.-'Where there's a will, there's a way.' The Wars of History. 'Of all the sad words of tongue or pen,

The saddest are these: it might have been.'

1896.-A Winter Landscape. Tramways.

(Whittier).

'If nothing more than purpose in thy power,

Thy purpose firm is equal to the deed.' (Young). 1897.-Describe the Plot of any Work of Fiction you have read.

'Ye gentlemen of England that live at home in ease,

Ah! little do ye think upon the dangers of the seas.'

'Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed,

Less pleasing when possest.'

1898.-King Arthur. American-Indian Warfare. The Protection of Song Birds.

1899.-An Adventure (real or imaginary) in a Railway Signal-box. A Cycling Tour in Ireland. Music.

1900.-Chivalry: Medieval and Modern. 'Procrastination is the thief of time.' Camping Out.

1901. The Pleasures of Travel in Modern Times. How Machinery affects the Development of Trades.

'For praise too dearly loved, or warmly sought,
Enfeebles all internal strength of thought,

And the weak soul, within itself unblest,
Leans for all pleasure on another's breast.'

1902.-The Literary Hack in the Days of Johnson. Hector and Achilles tried by Modern Standards of Military Heroism. The Untrustworthy Character of the Muse of History.

SENIOR GRADE.-Age, 17 to 18.

1892. The Educational Value of Examinations.

Contrast the

Characters of King Richard II. and Bolingbroke, as depicted by Shakespeare. 'Content is a kingdom.'

1893.-' Your Ideal Friend.' 'England, the Mother of Nations.' 'Manners with fortunes, humours turn with climes, Tenets with books, and principles with times.'

1894.-Common Sense.

Goldsmith's Estimate of Burke :

'Here lies our good Edmund, whose genius was such, We scarcely can praise him or blame him too much; Who, born for the Universe, narrowed his mind,

And to party gave up what was meant for Mankind.' 'For a crowd is not company, and faces but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love... A great city, a great solitude.' (Bacon).

1895.- 'There is no one so simple but assumes

Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.'

The Disadvantage of the Multiplication of Books and
Periodical Literature. The Value of Examination as a
Test of Educational Proficiency.

1896.- 'The evil that men do lives after them,

The good is oft interred with their bones.'

'Be not the first by whom the new is tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.'

The Influence of Music.

1897.-'Man is by nothing so well betrayed as by his manners.'

(Spencer).

The Advantages of Public Libraries. Men of Thought

and Men of Action.

U

1898. The desirability of making Hand and Eye Training an ordinary branch of School Education.

'Men may rise on stepping-stones

Of their dead selves, to higher things.'

The Uses and Abuses of Satire.

A Liberal Education.

1899. The Character and Policy of Bolingbroke. The Gentle Art of Pleasing.

'Wise men ne'er sit and wail their woes,

But presently prevent the ways to wail.'

1900.-The Use and Abuse of Prose Fiction.

'We are such stuff

Patriotism.

As dreams are made on, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.'

1901. The Influence of Our Daily Surroundings. India and its Conquerors. 'Men at some time are masters of their fates.'

1902.-The Style is the Man. The Aims and Pursuits of Women: Should they be identical with those of Men.

SUBJECTS SET FOR ARMY EXAMINATIONS SINCE 1884

1. The Effects of War upon National Character.

2. 'Peace hath her victories,

No less renowned than War.'

3. The Value of the Memories of Great Men.

4. Can a great General be also a great Statesman?

5. The Change effected by the Electric Telegraph in conducting the Government of Distant Dependencies, and how far that Change is beneficial or the reverse.

6. The Use and Abuse of Ridicule.

7. The Influence of Climate on the Amusements.

8. The Tongue, the Pen and the Sword as instruments of

Government.

9. Cricket as a School of Discipline.

10. The Influence of the United States on England.

II. Duelling.

12. Sea Voyages in Ancient and Modern Times.