OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3884, 31 December 1883, Page 4

OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM.

Wo translate the following letter from tho Nco Zelandais, a French newspaper published at Auckland: — "In the opening speech of the last con - fcronco of. tho Otago Institute upon professional teaching aro some remarks worthy of reflection. Mr Montgomery, tho President of the society and principal of the Normal School, complains that tho subjects to be learnt in the primary schools being too numerous tho results obtained are far from satisfactory. He desires, with reason, that a greater sharo bo given to that which it is essential for every scholar to know —that is to say, to tho study of his mother tongue, so that he may bo able to write and speak it correctly. If,. f says he, more time was devoted to this study, our system of education would bear much bettor fruit. In speaking of the sciences that are taught in tho public schools he maintains that to give them such a namo is puro nonsense. This avowal is so much tho more important, as it comes to us f >jpm tho principal of the Normal School; nourished in the seraglio he, better than anyone, should know whore primary teaching is at fault. But without thinking of it, ho brings to trial at the same time tho secondary education, tho latter being nothing less than a branch of primary teaching, with this difference, that in the High School a suspicion of Latin and still less of English is taught. About nine hours a week are employed there in teaching Latin and Greek to the young scholars, who having to make a position for themselves early in iife, can only devote to the study of these languages two or three years at tne most. Those who have passed seven or eight years upon the benches of a college can form an idea of how much of tho language of Virgil and of Homer ono can learn in so short a spaco of time. It is to be regretted that so much labor is concentrated upon a study so unfruitful and so little profitable. It may serve, it is true, to develop the memory, but the principal end of existence is not to remember but to knowhow to think. It is not no lon if »i? n f ' ,nt wr > wore following- ;ilmo«f. tho same method. L'homand and Bournouf were, after tho catechism of the diocese, the only breviaries of tho collegians of tho University of Franco. Tho "Forts en themes" of that time could explain the ancient authors "ad aperluram libra." As to their mother tongue it was another matter. Ono applied himself to that after having passed his "6ac/io" (his 8.A.). It being at length understood that a classical education had no right to bo in a century so utilitarian as ours, good order has been brought about. The honour of having cleared away from our system of education the parasites which wore absorbing all its vitality is duo to M. Ferry, tho President of the present Ministry. Apropos of this, our colonial professors would do well to weigh the most salient words of the speech whero it treated of the reforms which it proposed thou to effect. " With the present system of education," remarked M. Ferry, then Minister of Public Instruct-'

'•'young people arc, during ten - const nit communication without ever being -'' Since it is im>-' wi-itin" - T ~ __...,---" ,_icd . language, ...nig, mathomatie:. _ry." Tlio results of so .j practical an education cannot but x _ovc to the advantage of Franco by increasing the number of her scholars and of her inventors. Such a reform is now made without violent protestations. It has even been predicted that from this innovation -will date tho intellectual decline of the French nation. It wa.s ominously said that tho .xeolk.it grammatical gymnastic of Latin and Greek, to which a youth_ is submitted in the first years of his studies—the grammatical and logical analysis and turns of phrases, tho comparison of idioms—constitutes an incomparable mental exercise, and that, not only as a preparation for the moro advanced studies of tho classical authors, but independently of no matter what subsequent practical application. To this it has been replied that an equally excellent gymnastic being quite as possible in English and German, why should it not produce as advantageous results ? We havo never seen nor heard of a negative answer to this question which was not at once contrary to reason and to experience. Wo do not hesitate to affirm that if it is true that a perfect gymnastic in every branch of grammar tends to sharpen thefacultics, and to strengthen, thoresultwill bo equal, under an equally capablo direction, bo the subject French or Latin, Greek or German. But, laying aside all digressions and returning to the speech of tho principal of tho Normal School, wo shall say that he recalled to us a few words of Herbert Spencer upon the same subject. To resume we will quote them: of themselves they are worth a long poem :—"Of the knowledge commonly imparted in educational courses," said that eminent man, "very little is of service for guiding a man in his conduct as a citizen. Only a small part of the history ho reads is of practical value, aud of this small part ho is not prepared to make proper uso. Ho lacks not only the materials for but the very conception of descriptive socialogy, and ho also,lacks those generalisations of tho organic sciences, without which even descriptive sociology can give give him but small aid."