TEMPERANCE PRECEPTS

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2471, 26 May 1915, Page 9

TEMPERANCE PRECEPTS

TEACHING IN THE SCHOOLS ALCOHOL AND SCIENCE A deputation representing the New Zealand Allianco and the Women's Christian Temperance Union waited upon the Hon. J. Allen, in his capacity as Minister of Education, yesterday, to enter a plea for the effective teaching to children in the schools of tho effects of alcohol on the individual and on the community. The Rev. J. Dawson said that tho deputation had been directed, by the annual conference of the Alliance to make their request to the Minister. He referred to the statements of Ministers in England as to the effect of tho abuse of alcohol in jeopardising the defence of the Empire, and he suggested that they would have been, in order in approaching him as Minister of Defence. He admitted that the Department had in response to a previous appeal allowed charts relating to the effects of the abuse of alcohol to be displayed in the schools, but their experience was that these charts were not used to the best advantage. If the headmasters and the teaching staff were not sympathetic the charts' were useless. Further cases had been hung ported of the charts having been hung in unused rooms or lobbies in school buildings. What they asked was not that the schools should be used as a medium for disseminating their special theories about the liquor problem, but that in the school curriculum should be included the teaching scientifically of tho demonstrable effects, physiological and economic, of the use or 'abuse of alcohol. In order to ensure that this teachincc should be effective they asked that the subject should be made one for examination, and in older to familiarise teachers with it, they suggested that instruction on it should be given in the training colleges. Mrs. A. R. Atkinson urged ffie importance of the proposal. She suggested that if the kind of teaching that they asked for had been given to the children for the last ten years the soldiers would not have yielded to temptation as they had recently. Mr. Allen, replying, said that the Department had already done a great deal in pointing out to children tho evil effects of alcohol. It had been suggested that the charts were of little use if the teachers were unsympathetic. He did not know that anything could be of much use if the teacher were unsympathetic. Mrs. Atkinson: If he is going to get teaching marks for it in examinations he will be sympathetic. Mr. Allen: I can't say that I appreciate the principle behind that suggestion. If a teacher's work is to bo judged only by the result of examinations, I don't think his soul will be in it. He went on to discuss the question of the utility of examinations, saying that he thought the aim of school instruction should be not examination results, but the improvement of the children generally. The Rev. W. J. Comrie: How is that tested? The inspector tests it on some subjects. AYe want him to test it on this.

Mr. Allen did not agree with this proposition. Ho thought. that if teachers aimed at examination results instruction might be given which would not have the slightest lasting effect on the child. He did, however, sympathise with the deputation in their desire to give children knowledge of the evils of the abuse of alcohol. Space had already been found in the syllabua for the inculcating of the principles of temperance and kindred subjects. One effect of the new Act of last year, by which the control of the inspectorate was centred in the Department, _ would bo that uniformity of practice in different districts could be insisted upon. As to the proposal to introduce the subject mentioned into the training colleges he would consult the Director of Education. He knew the Department was in sympathy with the idea that, children should instructed in everything that would make them good citizens. >■ -