The Science Exhibition

d Queen's tying as runners up. Five Houses entered for the Instrumental Competition, which was won by Queen's. The all-round standard was good and the results very close.

MUSIC PRIZE COMPETITION

The judging of this competition was a difficult one. Balancing technical accuracy with musical enjoyment and varied standards of pieces is far from easy and no two people think alike on it. It is the nightmare of the solo adjudicator and our system of using a panel of the music staff helps to get an average of opinions. Walker's winning performance for the keyboard prize was hampered by the very bad condition of the Hall piano—a few weeks later he played the same piece with outstanding success at the School's Concert in the Lyons Concert Hall. Rivers's playing of the flute could have been an outright winner for the Instrumental prize, but he was nearly caught at the post by Craven, whose trombone playing made him joint winner.

K.R.P.

THE SCIENCE EXHIBITION MARCH 1971

The School's Twelfth Science Exhibition was opened on March 19th by Professor D. L. Smare of Bradford University. The theme of the exhibition was "Principles of Science and their Applications," and in his opening address Professor Smare emphasised the application of scientific principles with special reference to the improvement of human welfare. Although this aspect was perhaps not immediately apparent from any one exhibit, at the end of a tour of the exhibition one was left with a clear picture of the many ways man has benefited by applying his scientific knowledge to the solution of practical problems, and also of the number of practical difficulties that application has thrown up in our own day—appropriate, perhaps, that 1971 should vation Year. also be Conser-

Professor Smare also warned us against judging one exhibit against another—this was not a competitive display, but a series of examples of practical science, each one a link in a chain of applied knowledge.

It would, therefore, be inappropriate if my review were to attempt to single out some exhibits for praise and others for criticism. We were treated to a panoramic view of the work of the chemist, physicist, and

Ibiologist alike, and each landscape detail was as invaluable as the next in making up that view.

But if praise cannot bt distributed individually, it can and must be lavished on all who had anything to do with the exhibition. In his opening address the Headmaster referred to "the superhuman organisation" which had gone into the preparation and planning of the exhibition over the previous two months, to which I would add my praise for the enthusiasm with which the products were exhibited. To boys and staff

I owe a debt for beginning to fill in a very great gap in my own education, and I am sure there were many other visitors to the exhibition, who for the first time began to understand such everyday things as radio, detergents or milk, to name just a few. It was not just the nature 17