Educational benefit of expo

That the Exhibition offers an exceptional educational opportunity for old and young is recognised by all who have visited it. Upon the minds of children, it is calculated to make a particularly deep impression, giving them an idea of their country and of the Empire which all the text-books in the world would not convey. It is to be hoped that a very large proportion of the children of the schools of the South Island may pass through the portals of the Exhibition, particularly pupils of the upper standards. The Exhibition authorities look forward to the presence of the children, and can be counted on to make them welcome and their visits enjoyable and instructive.

Island’s treasure tidied

The state of Robert Louis Stevenson’s tomb on the summit of Vila in Samoa is no longer a reproach to those who are entrusted with its keeping. Some months ago a visitor to Samoa on returning to New Zealand complained that some vandals had defaced the tomb. Major-general Richardson, Administrator of Samoa, who reached Auckland on Monday, said that a few days after the departure of the visitor, who complained of the desecration, he visited the tomb and noticed the markings. He, too, felt strongly indignant and at once had the marks removed and the tomb cement-washed.

Alternative route north

A previous proposal to make the Horse Range road the main highway between Palmerston and Kartigi must be seriously reconsidered. The continual encroachments of the sea on the Beach road are now giving cause for grave alarm, and in many places there is no space left for the formation of a new road. The Horse Range route has much to recommend it. To begin with, it is the more direct, and would mean a saving in distance of about three miles; the road is less liable to flood than the one at present in use; and last, but not least, a magnificent view is obtained from the top of the range.

Otago graduates in Britain

From information officially sent by the University authorities: At Balliol College, Oxford, R.S. Aitken, 1924 Rhodes Scholar (Gisborne High School and Otago University) is taking Medicine; at Magdalen D.E. Denny-Brown (New Plymouth and Otago University), a distinguished and promising young medical student who was elected to a Beit Memorial Fellowship last June, has gone to Oxford to pursue advanced physiological research. At Jesus College, Cambridge, is H.S. Buckland (Dunedin), whose subject will be medicine. Dr A. Perry (Wellington and Dunedin) has passed his FRCS examination in Edinburgh, and now is at London Hospital Medical College as a post-graduate student with an appointment for six months. During the winter Dr Perry will be playing rugger for the Hospital.

Still-life acquired

The Dunedin Public Art Gallery Society has acquired a large-sized work in oils from the brush of a French artist, Blaise Alexandre Desgoffe. The canvas shows a still-life study of a kind rarely seen nowadays. The various articles of vertu depicted are limned with an extraordinary faithfulness. The highly wrought brazen urn which constitutes the centrepiece is a masterful example of what can be accomplished. Despite anything that might be said on the score of its conventionality, the picture should be an object lesson to art students. — ODT, 4.12.1925

Compiled by Peter Dowden