A PLEA FOR A SYSTEM OF INTERMEDIATE EDUCATION.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1662, 31 January 1913, Page 3

A PLEA FOR A SYSTEM OF INTERMEDIATE EDUCATION.

Sir,—Your sub-lender of Saturday dealing with tho New Zealand matriculation examination suggests to the writer an opportunity for drawing tlio attention of ,tuo educationalists of this Dominion to tlio benefits derived by. secondary education in Ireland from tlio intermediate system. Tlio »Irish Intermediate Board organises and superintends, the studies pursued in, tlio Irish secondary schools'' and colleges with tho object of seeing that students/are thoroughly prepared for tho university, and disciplines their studios after leaving tho (national) primary school, with the result tl&t the average Irish secondary student arrives" at tho university after traversing a curriculum a good deal more ■ generally advanced than that pursued by the average matriculation student in this Dominion. tho system, pupils are' graded according to nge, the preparatory intermediate examination being taken at fifteen, the junior at «ssteen, the middle at seventeen, and the senior at eighteen. . As an example of tho work accomplished,'the writer gives tho list of English authors read in the respective grades for the years 1889-1892:—Preparatory, "Prisoner of Chillbn"; junior, "Paradise and the Peri," Irving's "Christopher Columbus"; middle, "Paradise Lost" (Book I),'. "Spectator"; senior, "Merchant of Venice," "Richard II," and Burko's "Eeflections."

In addition to English, the average student also took French (from Fenelon's "Teleniaque" in the preparatory, to Corneille's "Polyeucte" in tho senior), Latin (from "Caesar" in the junior, to "Ovid" in the senior), or German, Greek (from Xenophen's "Anabasis" in the junior to Euripido's "Medea" in tho senior), or bookkeeping, chemistry, mathematics (including Euclid, algebra, and trigononie-' try), history, and geography.' The. South Kensington department -also exercised a "concurrent jurisdiction" in science,..and the intermediate, student was expected to pass the elementary and advanced examinations of the in sound, light, and heat, mechanics,' drawing, magnetism, 'and .eleotricity. After-he had "done" the intermediate and South Kensington programmes, ho- undertook his matriculation. The student thus made an intimate'and progressive acquaintance' with the classics, and had a good: deal more than a superficial 'knowledge of science by ..the time ho' arrived at the university. ■ The 6chemo was financed with tho funds held by'the Church of Ireland .'at its, disestablishment. Ninety per cent, of tho student's were the son's of tenant farmers.' who were not nearly so well able to afford an extensive ccta cation for their children as'- the average Now Zealander,and.tho'salaries. : .paid to tho teachers (mainly clerics) \in '-the writer s secondary Connaught College.wer'e purely nominal. Tho school-day involved six hours' class and three hours' study; the.students were not nearly" as weir fed' as the students, of. New Zealand colleges,, but there was no question ;that they were' ■ nevertheless mentally and'physically, efficient. The system also gave-a good.opportunity to a student for choosing his vocation, and-assisted him to specialise at th^' university after the', wide outlook obtained, in accomplishing tho intermediate syllabus. '■■/■■ ; Connaughtwasundouotedly rack-rented m the 'nineties j it was also , allegedly Onest-ridden,-but "the writer, after his New Zealand university studies, and his •more extensive education in'the great •university of the'world of 'men, looks • back with appreciation and gratitude on. ;thei accomplishments of his old Connaught ;ecclestistical teachers' in the' domain of' 'Irish secondary education.—l nm. .'etc : ' ■ . T ."■!' T " .-' B. J. DOLAN. . ; Napier, January 27.