Manchester High School for Girls is a distinguished school. From the beginning its pupils have been talented, intelligent, energetic and ambitious young women who have excelled in examinations of all kinds and at all levels.

The school's second headmistress, Miss Burstall was described by one of her pupils as having

"A warm humanity which made her easy of approach by young and old."

She always reassured her pupils that

"School is the place to make mistakes."

It is in this liberal spirit that these "howlers" have been included. Amusing mistakes were called "howlers" in Victorian times. These are all taken from Manchester High School exam papers of the early twentieth century. 

Mathematics

A problem is a question which you think you can answer but when you do you can't.

To divide a decimal I multiply the top line by a thousand to make it even with the bottom line and then I multiply the bottom line by three 000s to make it a whole number. When the bottom line stops going into the top line I put a dot to show that it has left off. The rest is a fraction.

A fraction is part of a whole. Take something and break it up. When you have got all the bits together you have got the whole. When you have not got all the bits...... [the answer is unfinished]

English

An abstract noun is a thing you may touch but may not speak of, for example, Mary's arm.

Fashion is when everybody thinks they know everything about and nobody knows what it is.

"Demi" means half, so a demagogue is someone who is half awake.

The difference between geography and geometry is geometry means measuring the earth with a yard measure and when you write it down it's geography.

Geography

Deltas of rivers are always moving about from one place to another and it is hard to tell which is which.

Weathering is bearing and being able to live happily in any kind of weather.

Ancient History

There used to be a volcano at Pompeii but now it does not work which is a very good thing.  

The Babylonians irritated their fields with canals.

Romulus and Remus were two hills and Rome was built on them. The Palatine Hill is another hill on which it was built. The hill is gone but there is a road to it yet.

History

George Stephenson was the first man to instruct a railway

Cromwell was an ugly man, very Biblical but good in his own way.

Joan of Arc went to the dwarf fin of France.

William the Conqueror was one day walking in the New Forest when William II Rufus came along with his bow and arrow. He said to the king, "Let me show you how I can shoot an apple off your head." When he shot at it, instead of shooting the apple he shot William right through the head and some people say he did this on purpose.