Comment

Kieth Norman
2-4-7

This priceless and invaluable educational article is a quiet (yet explosive) guardian as to the personal manner (a stark reminder), how criminality with stealth avoids detection by creeping carefully with its invisibility upon the freedoms and rights that have eroded in just 52 years. Perhaps we DO need another blood-letting war so as to appreciate and cherish that which follows the carnage of death and destruction.

What is it about "men" where invention and creativity (power by default) always appear to result in aggressive and calculated hostile behaviour?

Capitalism is the rush ('surge') to what was at one time a democratic Market Place, while its velocity and acceleration is more expectant than the 120 days of work that the GOPs and the DEMs can muster. So, what is the survival opportunity of the Constitution?

The US Constitution is not unlike that of a very simple "Project Procedure Plan"..There are continious milestones that will (not can) carry penalties if targets are delayed. When the "Project" is complete, its "constitution" is there in black and white for all to see. If there is neglect and no maintenance carried out when implemented, then the walls will come tumbling down.

It is the maintenance aspect of the US Constitution that needs analysis and constant monitoring.  There are people in Government and Business positions that need change as would a junky require a cocaine fix. The only difference is that the junky is just attempting to survive...day-to-day. He has no covert plans and expectations

There is a philosophical system out there somewhere where the group can be the people, totally. IIt has to emanate from individuals that are not polluted with copiousness and grandeur. There have been many over the centuries. "The Founding Fathers" and many since, and many many more prior.....Socrates from Alopece to John Kenneth Galbraith, economist, diplomat and diplomatist (the Canadian bloke). Can we start with Ron Paul, maybe? I don't know for I am a Brit.

Is it probable that Presidents like Vlad Putin, Chavez, Ajad' and maybe 'Morals' Morales have spliced together a "Constitution" of the mind where today's Capitalism cannot exist alongside "Democracy". This is so obvious. The American (US and Can) policies are no longer functional when the "other" parts of the World are suffiently powerful and cognisant to demand change. The Sodom (Hollywood) and Gomorrah (Tel Aviv) days are slowly coming to an end...(hope so, he said ..touching wood).

Today, historical evidence being the Memory Bank of Human Kind, has the solution. It has to be accessed with the right "reading heads" over its platter.

See at foot of page an article on exactly the above dumbing down theme... sent a couple of years ago for your consideration..........Can you answer #4 in the Geography section...:-))

This is what my Dad called the "General" paper. Apparently, there were at the time individual tests on each subject...plus another 6 subjects not listed. Of course, they had a little thing called an Empire at the time. So much work..so little time.

Kieth Norman (Welsh Brit)

Canada

----- Original Message -----

From: minn mordyl
Sent: Saturday, November 27, 2004
Subject: RE: "Dumbing down":..Excellent example for 11 year olds...alas it's 1898 in Britain

This is an excellent example (below) of the continuing saga in the intentional and premeditative "dumbing down" of our children's education. It verifies all that Rense.com and its educated contributors have been thinking, highlighting and illustrating to the readers for at least the past three years.

From that time period (1898 test below) and then the necessary passage of exactly 50 years to when yours truly was 11 years old, I would at that point in time, possibly, would have been able to answer approximately 60% of the questionnaire...that is, losing 40% in those 50 years on the presumption that I would have the questions 100% correct ...50 years earlier.

Namely, losing linearly approximately 0.8% per year. This amounts to the deflection or loss of neuron transmitters ( by TV, Game Boy, new Kennedy "play" game, etc, etc) on the order of 106 years at 0.8% per annum.(calculator please) = 85% (from 1898 to 2004). This indicates that by deductive reasoning, today, our children are running around their schools and neighbourhoods quarrying legal "Tommy Guns" with an intelligence level of an 1898 child that has been confined to an Institution for the 'Mentally Challenged'

Do you get the impression that the last few paragraphs above appear somewhat confusing in its deductibility and rhetoric...even wrong through lack of education?:-))...Maybe it should be added to the below questionnaire.. "Where is the logic in these paragraphs". Assuming they taught Integrated Calculus and the Freudian Transference Theory (if then in existence).. to the 11 year olds..........who knows.

Kieth Norman (Welsh Brit)

Canada

PS - This confirms my suspicions that the Engineers and the Scientists were intellectually far superior at the dawn of the last century.

 

Article Starts here

Dumbing down: the proof (may have to register)

 

http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php?id=5313&issue=2004-11-27

Issue: 27 November 2004

 

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.

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.

6. Translate into English:-

 

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.