THE PROBLEM OF THE BOY

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 60, 4 December 1920, Page 9

THE PROBLEM OF THE BOY

« ' MAKE HIM "WANT TO LEARN." , Dr. W. H. D. Rouse, headmaster, Perso School, Cambridge, had a striking article' in a recent issuo of the "Weekly Dispatch" on the way to interest boys.. .-"Whv is it that .Endish boys, who am certainly more intelligent and mora full of life than nny others, are so bored in school?" he asks. "That is the question I asked myself when I bejnn to be bored myself. ; > "I believe .that educationfis - -usually quite separated' from the natural life an 3 interests of bovs: and that it secnis to them- a tyranny without meaning, udjfees it. be directed to some ulterior end, such as passing an examination,'or winning a prize or a scholarship. "I liolieve that a boy's work in school should be his delight, and I know that it is possible to make it so, at least in all-literary subjects. "The tost is happiness. If the- bw w not happy in his work, either lie is m fault (wliioh is sometimes the • case, .if ho be dull or.slothful.or vicious)-or tlie I subject, -which may be unsuited io liim, [ or. the master; who may be incompetent, or tho method, which may be false. It is iu the fourth state that tho' trouble lies, of that I am confident. To amend it wo must apply the one healing principle- bring all subjects into the range of 'the boy's liaturnl in6tincls and dasires. ■- ■ . ' . ■

"That is only another way of 6aying: Mak<> the boy want to learn. Difficulties inay be so presented that bovs will desire to overcome them, just as tliev do ■with the physical difficulties of football, cricket, or boxing. "The hoy w-aht6 to move about; he bates sitting still. Then let Kim danca and sing ditties while lie dances; let him act the stories hp hears and reads; let liini model tho things ho hears of in history, or portray their scenes; let him make a geography garden; let him collect his natural history specimens, and Rive lectures about them to his schoolfellows. ,

"History; and nature, and even geography, will always be attractive, if sensibly taught, but what of foreign languages? Do not eet the boy down to learn tables of 'unintelligible jargon—for so grammar paradigms seem to him—or to translate exercises about nymphs and goddesses, incoherent as it all really is; but teach him the sentences which describe bis everyday acts, and let him say them while ho does those acts: then explain the grammar, and bo will'bo quite ready to learn it in order to carry on what seems a. ravishinj J »''neir game. And so right through.

"First embody your accidenc? and syntax, in series of dramatic sentences, or dinioguctj, and ho soon feels that Iho new language is a new way to express old things; whii'h it gives him pleasure to use.

"Then, when lie is further advanced, and the mjnd takes its rightful place, let him read in hie author and learn' to understand his beauties ns they come, with his master's help; and, believe me, a boy of sixteen will enjoy hisi Virgil and Horace, Homer and Sophocles, and Plato with as keen a zest as he would lie enjoying his EH'oiuophonc or-shilling shocker if lio. had been brought up. on n grammar exemplified by rubbishy and nonsensical cxercisw.

"All schools ought to be liornea of singinjf and dancing and happiness,-and there is no reason in the world why thev should not be the same for over)' 1 social class. , At the age of ton would come the iiist broil li, when those who seemed intellectually _ capable should pass on to tho wliolo intellectual course; the othei« to those handicrafts and trades which they most love and take a pride-inj.for tho s,TOio principle' applies to the craftsman as to tho scholar. 1

"And if, when they grow up, they. find, that the modern artisan's work is'hot. a man's work nt all. but a maohin'e's, let' them mend it. They must solve' thair own riddle; but wo can wake them #ble to do so."