A COUNTRY SCHOOL GOMPLAINT.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2545, 20 August 1915, Page 6

A COUNTRY SCHOOL GOMPLAINT.

Sir,—Finding it to be a common complaint among parents of the country I districts that • a child who has been thoroughly taught at homo before being sent to the State School) is put . back below his abilities; the writer hopes that this abuse has only to be ventilated to be corrected. It is preposterous, for example, that a child who can read easy stories should be placed in the alphabet class, cr that one fitted for the Third Standard should bo put in tho .first. One lady informed me that lier eldest boy had been well taught at home (much better than they can be taught in those overcrowded "schools), and he was put among quite small boys. Not only that, but his sums, pronounced correct by his father, a man of superior education, were marked wrong, and it was not until the parents insisted 011 knowing where they were wrong that the teacher acknowledged that 6he was the one in fault. All ex-school tcacher confessed, also, that there is a petty jealousy against what thoy learn at homo. The writer did not experience any of this paltrinoss of feoling in the Wellington schools. Should names be rennired, the writer can furnish them. —I am, etc., SPECTATOR.