The Evening Star MONDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1872.

Evening Star, Issue 3036, 11 November 1872, Page 2

The Evening Star MONDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1872.

It is acknowledged on all hands that, in a country like New Zealand, it would 1)0 absurd, in our higher education, to lay too much stress on classical studies. For many years to come there will be but very few among us to whom the niceties of scholarship will be anything more than the merest accomplishment. When, therefore, an attempt is made to drive back the general education of the country into the narrow path from which the older institutions of Great Britain are socking to escape, it is cleir that nothing but mischief can be the result. Such an attempt has been and apparently is still being made by the so-called New Zealand University. In the competivive examinations held by that body this year, an absurd predominance was , given to knowledge of Greek and Latin ] and from the published list of subjects which aspiring young candidates arc expected to prepare, it seems likely that the same predominance will be given to classics again next year. In physical science, the candidates are advised to made themselves acquainted with text-books of tlie most elementary character. In English, one play of Shakespeare is all that is required. In mathematics, it is true, if the examination were sensibly conducted, the list includes enough to tax a fairly advanced schoolboy but if as was the case before, the mathematical questions are of an absurdly easy and elementary kind, then the same thing will happen again. Mathematical studies, which ought to be made most important, will be put into the background, and the successful candidates will bo those who are most advanced in the study of Greek and Latin ; and the result will be to give classical studies an undue prominence in the eyes of all the schoolmasters who arc caught by .the bait. It is true that in Otago classical studies have been unduly neglected, or rather lost, in a great multiplicity of other studies; and wc in this Province ought to be grateful to the New Zea-

land University for opening our eyes to tins tact. The knowledge which we have thus gained is, wc strongly suspect, the one solitary beneficial result of all that the New Zealand University has hitherto done. We, in common with most Colonial people, arc rather too much given to self-laudation. In education especially, because our Provincial Legislature has had the wisdom to make liberal endowments, we have been flattering ourselves. and telling the rest of the Colony that wo arc vastly superior to them in every part of our educational system ; that'there are nowhere to be found such ■ admirable and eflicient inspectors and teachers, and such highly-trained scholars, as in Otago. So far as classics are concerned, we had better ccaso boasting. Whether wc have any cause for self-complacency in other branches of school education does not yet appear. But in the meantime perhaps it would bo wiser not to boast at all, but rather to try and learn—what education, if it is worth anything, ought especially to teach—and that is modesty. But to return to the effect likely to be produced by these competitive examinations. The New Zealand University —or Examing Board, as it ought rather to be called- is attempting not only to give undue weight to classical studies, but to do what is much worse than that, namely, to encourage the most mischievous of all practices, that of cramming young students with the contents of books which it is far beyond their power to master. In the notice which we have already referred to, candidates for University scholarships arc informed that they will be examined in certain portions of the works of Greek and Latin authors. The consequence is that at the present time every schoolmaster in New Zealand, instead of attending to the real wants of his scholars, and keeping them to such studies as are, most fitted for them, is cramming them with indigestible masses of crude stuff in the shape of interpretations of difficult passages in the works of these authors ; and their education is thus being made, in the most literal and original sense of the word, a farce. Now, even if it were admitted that classical studies ought to be of paramount importance, still such a result as we have described must be sheer undiluted mischief. A condition of absolute ignorance is infinitely superior to a state which can only be adequately described by saying that the miserable scholar is converted into an educational sausage. Of course, those students, if there are any, who are capable of mastering these classical subjects will not perhaps suiter any harm by having their work cut out for them. But it may reasonably bo doubted whether in Otago, at auy rate, ■there are any schoolboys sufficiently advanced for such studies. It is a erroat pity that the Legislative Council should have thrown out the Auckland University Bill. The revenue of the Colony might possibly have been wasted if the Universities of Auckland and Otago bod proved themselves unequal to the task of teaching. But, at any rate, it would not have beeu employed in such au actively mischievous manner as it is now being employed by the socalled New Zealand University. In the meantime, w r e would strongly urge upon our schoolmasters and teachers pot to ruin their scholars by cramming them, whether with Creek or with geology, with a to these com petitive examinations,