FAULTS IN EDUCATION

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 161, 2 April 1919, Page 3

FAULTS IN EDUCATION

SIR RONALD ROSS ON HEALTH CONSCRIPTION

Colonel Sir Ronald Boss, in his presidential address at tho annual meeting of the Association of Public School Science Masters,. held at the London Day Trainin" Colleac, Southampton Row, said that his duties at the War Olhco compelled him to leave for Salonika about the timo that he should havo taken up his position as president; and just as he should have been sitting down to pen his address to them ho wns torpedoed off the island of Ithaca, in full sight of the ghosts of Ulysses and Penelope! Tho task of that association would, ho added, be lightened, and many problems of education solved, if a really good scientific test of the results of education could be invented. But as no such test was known, all they could do was to try to form some kind of personal estimate, and he proposed to offer his own life notes on tho subject. Beginning with ! physical education, he thought the British system had deservedly net the fashion throughout, tho world. It had been the great merit of British education to have discovered the superlative educating capacity of what were often called mere pastimes and amusements. A'et this had been quite a modern discovery, and many nations were still only just learning the lesson from us. This led to tho all-im-portant question of human physique. Variations in physique showed' such peculiar local distribution that we must attribute them more to environment than to kredity. The principal course of physioiil deterioration, combined as it generally was with mental and moral deterioration, must be some unknown factor which had not yet been discovered.

On the other hand, speaking as a military medical officer, ha would say with certainty that a period of open-air military training under discipline, combined with good food, greatly improved the physique, the health and the mental powers of young men, let alone their manners and moral. For this reason he would be in favour of universal military training everywhere; but, on the other hand, ho admitted the forco of the argument that sueii military training might be an incentive to puerilo wars — though 'he was not sure, of it. On the whole he would at least suggest an alternative scheme—a scheme of what ho called health conscription, consisting of. at least, a fortnight's compulsory physical training, under discipline, in tho open air, for both sexes, every year for five years, between the ages, say, of 15 and 20. There would, of course, bo the usual objections, on the score of expense and interference with so-called liberty; but the. alteniutivo appeared to him to be continued deterioration of body"and mind.

Too Great Detail in School Work. Referring to the actual Knowledge obtained by the young in our schools, Sir I'onald Ross said bo had' come to tha conclusion that it was really not very much. His complaint was not so much as to the total amount of information imparted as to the direction of it. Our teaching had been concerned chiefly with mathematics and the classics, with the outlines of history and of English litem ture. ' Fow young men knew.even the aims and objects of the science of mathematics, much less its applications, although they might have studied it for years at school. The reason was that tho schoolboy was not pushed fast enough into the heart of tho science, which was tho Calculus. The error was that of entering into too great detail at tho outset. As regarded the classics, his complaint was not that boys were taught the "humanities," but that they were not taught them. The fundamental mistake seemed to be the same ag in- mathematics—too great detail at the outset. The study of history, literature, art, and policies of tho human race degenerated into tho meticulous study of the alphabet of the subject only—that was, Greek and Latin, grammar. -..Why did we still learn these languages? • In order to read Greek and Latin literature. But after we had spent years iii learning tho languages we became so tired of them that-wo did not read tho literature at'all! Surely that 'was a waste of timo and money. He wondered whether some change could not bo made in all this. Might wo not read tho literature and let tho grammar go hang?

. S) also with our teaching in most things—wo pottered ahout the porch and never looked into the temple at all. It wis usually and rightly maintained that tho aim of .all education was to endow the young with character, judgment, and knowledge. When people argued that the relative importance of these qualities was in tho order given, he was inclined to disagree. This trinity of elements was necessary for educational salvation,, but all three were so closely.knit together that we could not do without one of them, rvo one, would, pretend that natural science was the only subject to be taught; but he could not conceive how anyone who did not possess sonie broad knowledge of the immense accumulation of facts about nature collected by humanity during tho last 2000 years could dare to call himself an educated person.

Open-air Education. • He urged that our system of open-air education, in which the public schools had set the example, .was 1 a most invaluable nud essential part of education. Closely connected with it was the principle of personal honour, good temper, and duty —that was, a. spirit of noblesse oblige— which the open-air education, more than anything else, fostered and inculcated. On tlie other hand he thought that our system of education was defective as regarded the imparting of fundamental knowledge. Most of tho great knowledges of humanity were not implanted in the. minds of our youth, not only the great discoveries of science, but also the great discoveries of literature, including classical literature, and of the high poetry, painting, music, and philosophy, which constituted the principal heritage of tha human Tace. Indeed, knowledge was often actually derided by the numerous apostles of fnkerism in this country, or was replaced by a useless lumber of unimportant matter; and foreign languages and many of tlio petty but useful arts of life were' much neglected. Hence the whole intellectual side of lifo was 100 frequently ignored or even despised by tho masses of the people, with the result that their judgment was starved for want of facts, and that they became too often the slaves of fads and quackeries and unproven dogmas of every description—party politics, meretricious propaganda, ignoble creeds, and even sometimes superstitions that savages would laugh at. But behind these and other defects the nation possessed bv nature a kindliness, a sense, of hunionr'and fair play, and an unopnosable force of good intention which had made it during the last four years the pattern and exemplar of the world. Tieplvin? to a vote of thanks, the President'said he heard the other day that a battle was lost because the general sent an illegible scrawl to one of his lieutenants,'who could not make out what he wanted.