SCHOOL TEACHING.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3594, 18 January 1883, Page 4

SCHOOL TEACHING.

Handwriting is a most important branch of education ; but, notwithstanding the use of steel pens and the cheapness of paper, we fear that the writing of schoolboys will not bear comparison with that of any earlier age. Less attention is now given to this subject than to others, and the schoolmaster no longer piides himself on his caligraphical abilities. Less than forty years ago the time of schoolmasters was largely occupied with mending quills and writing fair copies. Good quill making and fine writing were essential qualifications in a schoolmaster. But the introduction of steel pens, and of copy-books with engraved headings, has brought about a change which has not been for the better, so far as writing is concerned. Whatever the cause, writing has deteriorated, and good writing, which was once the rule, has become the exception. Among applications for clerkships it is comparatively rare to find a well-written, letter. Another subject which we should like better taught is that of English composition. While not underrating the value of French and of any modern language, or jinv branch of science which has been recently introduced into the curriculum of elementary schools, we think English composition deserving of attention before all these. To be able to write one's own language correctly and elegantly is surely of more value than to be able to write or speak a foreign language. The late Sir William Fairbairn declared himself unable to determine whether he wrote or spoke correctly. His schoolmaster, he said, was well qualified to teach English, but it was considered not only non-essential, but as standing in the way of other branches of education. In some elementary schools the thorough study of English is even yet absolutely ignored ; in others, grammar is taught theoretically, and children arc bewildered by the distinction between distributive, quantitative and qualitative nouns. Frequent exercise in composition, and the study of the best models, should, wo feel sure, produce greater results. The study of botany has to some extent been adopted, but it is a subject which cannot be taught satisfactorily from books. Why should not the teacher take his scholar into the country, and study the book of nature itself 'i "Pickup," says Professor Blackie, " pick up a cowslip from a. sandy knoll and compare it with the yellow clover that grows beside ! and let that be your first lesson in botany. Pick up the pebbles from a burn mouth, and ask yourself how came these variously-spotted, curiously-veined, nicely-smoothed fragments to spread themselves over a ground which in texture and appearance bears so little kinship to the crop of things with which it is covered r This is to study geology in the living and natural way :to study how to observe and how to think, which is the only kind of study that brings the faculties of a rational being into play. To be tciojld botany nr rjcoloiji/ from a booh is sitiip/i/ to be crammid and ft a (fed with Mimaxti'rcd and intttsxiwilatcd results, which, any goose can be." In one respect schoolmasters have not kept pace with the times. They still use the cane. Every week the ncwspapor.s record cases of assaults upon children —assaults as cruel as many of those committed in the dark ages. The rod has always played a conspicuous part in the education of eliildren, especially lit the higher schools where milder treatment might be looked for. That schooltcacliing is harassing, we willingly admit; that some school lads are provoking-, we will allow; but we question whether the schoolmaster has found his right place whose only weapon of maintaining discipline is the cane, and who, in his treatment makes no distinction between the weak and the strong, between the timid blunderer and the hardy and daring breaker of discipline. The sooner this species of Dominie becomes extinct, like the dodo, the better for the teaching profession, the. better for the .scholars, and the better for the nation, while the present system of overtaxing an insufficient teaching-staff, instead of providing a sufficient one, calls loudly for immediate inquiry and revision.—Time.