PHYSICAL EDUCATION

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2273, 6 October 1914, Page 4

PHYSICAL EDUCATION

So _ much is said nowadays about the importance of health and so little relatively is done to conserve or maintain it that it is quite refreshing to note the rapid progress that has been made by the Physical Education Branch of the Education Department with the important task set before it when it was established about two years ago. The work of tho Physical Education Branch is to make provision for the systematic instruction of the children attending the State and other schools throughout the Dominion in simple physical exercises, calculated to assist their Wealthy growth and development, and in elementary rules of health and personal hygiene. Already tho benefits of the system have been extended to about half the school children of the Dominion, and .at the present rate of progress it will not be long before it is universal. It is perhaps hardly necessary to emphasise the importance of the work, for it is coming to be- increasingly ' recognised that, apart from its bearing upon comfort and happiness, sound health has an allimportant bearing upon bodily, and mental working efficiency. To those who take an inflexibly conservative view of matters educational, it may appear that when the Director of Physical Education (Mr. Royd Garlick) pleads that more time should be devoted in the schools to physical education he is asking that play should be substituted for work and serious instruction. Those who approach the matter with -.an open mind, however, will probably recognise that Mr. Garlick is simply appealing for all-round efficiency. In his annual report upon the working of his sub-department he maintains that health and physical vigour are the essential foundation of mental efficiency in the schools, as elsewhere, and since this will hardly be denied, his contention that "more than fifteen minutes a day should be devoted to the physical education of ,the children in the schools certainly demands serious consideration. Old piejudices die hard, but those who hold that the health of children is best promoted by leaving them to their own play, with Nature as sole teacher, will find food for thought in those sections of the Education report for the year which deal with the medical inspection of schools. So' far tho work carried out by the medical inspectors has been mainly experimental and of limited extent,- but while the data collected would not justify dogmatic conclusions as to the physical condition of children throughout the Dominion, it is plain that defects of one kind and another are- fairly prevalent, and that remedial measures are necessary. It will be time enough when the medical inspection of school children has been carried out in a comprehensive way to determine just what remedial measures are necessary, but meantime it is unquestionable that tho physical education scheme in operation will do a great deal to eradicate minor defects, such, for instance, as stooping shoulders and malnutrition (due in many cases to ignorance or neglect rather than to under-feeding), and to prevent new defects appearing. Side by side with the development of the physical education scheme there will naturally be a war upon all unhealthy conditions in schools, unsuitable . desks,, lack of proper ventilation, and so forth.

Hampered to some extent by the smallness of the staff—for Mr. Royd GAELicic'is assisted at present by only nine instructors—the physical education scheme appears iu the main to b'e making smooth and rapid progress. It is mentioned by a number of inspectors of schools in their reports embodied in that of the Education Department, and -always with approbation and as likely to lead to an improvement in b'oth the physical and mental condition of the child. A very gratifying feature, noted both' by the inspectors and by the Director,, is the spirit, in which the teachers have tackled their new duties. Men and women alike appear to have thrown themselves into the work, not only willingly, but with enthusiasm. Hearty co-opera-tion on the part of the teachers is of course essential to the successful working of the sub-department,-and it should be assisted by a system of classification which was-'adopted .before the classes began in June, 1913. Under it the teachers are grouped according to the proficiency shown during training, and 1823 of those trained to date have been classified into three groups. Six per cent, of the women and seven per cent, of the men secured inclusion in the first group, which represents good instructors who would be eligible to serve the sub-department in that capacity should vacancies arise. The percentages are small, but the standards set are high, and the teachers were tested after only a fortnight's instruction. The principal practical difficulty at present facing Mr. Royd Gakhck and his staff is that of covering the necessary ground. To date upwards of two thousand teachers have been trained, more than half of the total • number in the Dominion. In the North Island all the teachers' have been trained, except a hundred or two located in remote districts, but in the South Island the training of teachers has not as yet extended beyond Southland and the training colleges at Christchurch and . Dunedin. The original scheme contemplated that teachers should not merely undergo a fortnight's training in the first instance, but should afterwards be kept up to a pitch of efficiency by frequent visits from the instructors of the sub-department in the capacity of inspectors. The position at the moment is that the existing staff of instructors is inadequate to at once carry out the training of additional teachers and the- work of inspection in districts where the teachers have already been 'trained. Months ago the Minister of Education (Mr'. Ali,en) indicated that additional instructors would have to be appointed, but presumably at the moment counsels of economy prevail. On the face of it, however, it would be a great pity to starve the physical education scheme at its present promising stage of development. Financially it has represented not so much an additional item of State expenditure as a triumph of economy. The Junior Cadet system, which it superseded, applied to 30,000 boys, and cost in its last year (1912) £6513. The physical education scheme, in its first complete year of operation, cost tho country £7890, and in that period .V 169 teachers were trained, bringing the benefits, of physical education to 61,600 boys and girls. These figures will new be greatly improved, for the nurabt-r of children Denefited har been largely increased, with little, ii any, greater outlay on the part of the Department. It will hardly be doniod thnt n, fow thousands n yeav additional would be- well sjoant in

making physical education universal in the schools of the Dominion. Even in time of war it is a doubtful economy to stint necessary expenditure in .promoting tne health of the rising generation.