The Daily Telegraph. MONDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1883.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3827, 22 October 1883, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph. MONDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1883.

In a few weeks' time thousands of little children, aud hundreds of older age, will be cramming for examination at the hands of tho several inspectors of the educational districts into which this colony is divided. It is deemed an essential part of the system of education that, once or twice a year, school children should be examined as to their attainments, and by their attainments that the teachers should be judged. Elaborate returns of the number of marks secured by the littlo candidates form tho educational judgment-book of the school, and from its figures an estimate is obtained of tho actual -work of tho school. Tho whole world is in these days a little mad on the subject of education, and, . perhaps, tbo mania is moro strongly developed in the Australasian Colonies than elsewhere lii England, however, the evil effects of overtaxing tho brains of young people are becoming apparent enough. In one of the late numbers of tho Gentleman's Magazine there is a short paper on the subject by Mr AY. M. AVilliams. Medical men aro now perfectly unanimous as to the serious effect examinations have on the health of children in primary schools. The last act, says Mr AVilliams, "of too many educational tragedies is performed too visibly under their eyes for them to have any doubts on the subject, and they are speaking out as well befits the guardians of public health to speak. My experience is aich that I can generally pick out from a number of school girls those who have been during the few past months preparing for an examination, especially if their faces were familiar to mc before commencing tho course of cerebral torture. I have watched the fading of childish bloom, the undermining of childish joyousness, the cruel growth of unnatural pallor, and the expression of anxiety and aged seriousness. In somo cases a breakdown has occurred before arrival of the awful day, and the victim has never recovered. Either death or permanent weakness of brain has followed. In others the ordeal has been passed, a holiday has partially restored the decaying health, but never totally; the fixed laws of organic growth declare that to be impossible. The intellectual result is a hatred of every school subject, and refuge in tho miserable literature of sensational fiction.".. But there aro exceptions, .and these aro of girls of masculine temperament, with high cheekbones, square shoulders, broad foreheads, big muscles, and exceptionally capacious chests. They pull through liko boys, who suffer far less from the modern implements of educational torture than girls. But there arc boys of delicate physical organisation, and endowed with highly nervous susceptibility, that arc sacrificed more or less completely, and shut out from an intellectual career that mighthave been lovingly handled and judiciously nourished in accordance with the natural laws of their growth. Mr AVilliams' advice to all parents who arc seeking a school for their children is to carefully scrutinise tho prospectuses of those undor consideration, and whenever they find that an advertisement is put forth of tho number passed at this or that or the public examination, to decide at once against that school, as educationally pestiferous. Then, with tho others that do not so unblushingly publish their shame, make careful inquiry respecting the general working of the school, and finally select that iv which special prepara-

tion for annual or other competitive examinations, inside or outside, forms tho least prominent feature, or does not exist. This, of course, must not apply to the classexaminations, which proceed parri passu with the daily teaching. Such examinations, as means of education, arc most valuable, but whenever examinations are made the end instead of the means the education is rotten, dishonest, and mischievous, and tho sooner the poisonous perversion is stamped out altogether tho better for the moral, intellectual, and physical future of the whole community.