Editing Diamond Jenness (section)

== Early life (1886–1910) ==
[[File:Oxford Anthropologists 1911.jpg|thumb|University of Oxford Anthropology Diploma class of 1910–11. Jenness is in the center of the back row.]]

=== Family and childhood ===
Diamond Jenness was the second youngest son in a middle-class family of ten children. His father's profession was that of a watchmaker/jeweler, though he also installed several clocks in municipal building towers in New Zealand. The family was encouraged to read, learn music, and engage in sports. Richling, in his biography “In Twilight and in Dawn,” writes that the young Jenness “was a proficient outdoorsman and an accomplished sharpshooter,” skills that helped prepare him for his experience in the arctic years later.<ref name="Rich">{{Cite book|last=Richling|first=Barnett|title=In Twilight and in Dawn: A Biography of Diamond Jenness (Volume 67) (McGill-Queen's Indigenous and Northern Studies)|publisher=McGill-Queen's University Press|year=2012|isbn=978-0773539815|location=Montreal, Quebec|pages=8–11|language=English}}</ref>

=== Education ===
At an early age, Jenness showed proficiency for learning. He earned his first scholarship at the age of twelve by entering a composition competition for children under fourteen. In those days, in New Zealand, secondary education was only available to the wealthier families, so this scholarship enabled Jenness to complete high school and three years of college. He finished his final year of secondary education with six prizes: mathematics, science, Latin, French and English, and was named top student. He attended Lower Hutt School, then [[Wellington College (New Zealand)|Wellington College]].<ref>{{cite web|url= https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZTIM18990113.2.16?end_date=31-12-1899&items_per_page=10&query=Diamond+Jenness&snippet=true&start_date=01-01-1897&type=ARTICLE |title= Junior scholarships |publisher=  Papers Past  |date= 1898}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url= https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19040126.2.6?end_date=31-12-1904&items_per_page=10&query=Diamond+Jenness&snippet=true&start_date=01-01-1899&type=ARTICLE |title= Junior scholarships |publisher=  Papers Past  |date= 1904}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url= https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19040126.2.6?end_date=31-12-1904&items_per_page=10&query=Diamond+Jenness&snippet=true&start_date=01-01-1899&type=ARTICLE |title= December Examinations |publisher=  Papers Past  |date= 1904}}</ref> He and sister May were the only two siblings to proceed on to college.<ref name="Rich"/>

Jenness graduated from the [[University of New Zealand]] (from the constituent college then called [[Victoria University College]]) (B.A. 1907; M.A. 1908), receiving first class honors for both degrees. Then, when 22 years old, he received a scholarship that allowed him to pursue further education at [[Balliol College, Oxford|Balliol College]], [[University of Oxford]] (Diploma in Anthropology, 1910; M.A. 1916).