BETTER EDUCATION

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 278, 13 August 1918, Page 6

BETTER EDUCATION

SOME NATIONAL NEEDS. The faults' of New Zealand's education system were discussed at length by Mr. F. L. Combs last night in tho course of a lecture before the Wellington School Committees' Association. .Mr. Combs emphasised the importance and the difficulty of the'teaching profession, and snowed how the sphere of the teacher had been widened by modern social and economic development. The teacher required to bo something more than a mere instrument for teaching children to read and write. He had to be prepared to put the children into touch with their environment, give them an understanding of economic and political problems, and direct their mini,ls intr right, channels of thought. A eood place to fight such evils as paniljlin'f and film sensationalism was in the school, where the young people could bo led to seek the hieher amusements.

Mr. Combs said iliat at present the school classes were too large, and the examination system was in the interests of neithor pupil nor teacher. The inspectors did not have time to inquire regarding the children's intelligence and mental development. They, had to demand specified knowledge on certain subjects, and the system made it impossible for the teacher-to study the natural aptitudes of the individual child as he should do. lie had to teach the children in groups along set lines. Another serious evil was the failure of the present system to attract teachers of sufficiently high nualifications to the country schools. The salaries were small, and tho conditions of life for tho teacher were often very difficult, particularly in the case of the married man. Yet it was plain that upon the success or failure of the work of tho eountrv teachers much of the future welfare of New (Zealand depended, since it would require educated and enlightened farmers to make two blades of grass grow where one grew .before, and so enable the Dominion to continue its' development unchecked.