Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 1918. THE EDUCATION SYSTEM

Hokitika Guardian, 22 August 1918, Page 2

Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 1918. THE EDUCATION SYSTEM

I.v the course of a conference in Christchurch last week on Education, Air C. T. Aschman moved a remit on behalf oi the North Canterbury Educational Institute urging closer co-ordination in tho methods of instruction affecting the primary, secondary', and technical departments. In doing so the niovei made a very comprehensive speech on the subject at issue, and his remarks are summarised in a very clear report from which we have made the following extracts, the subject matter dealt with being referred to on very practical lines which, we- venture to think, will find general favour among those who have given this important national service more than passing attention. Air Aschman said that tho growth of our educational system had not produced a unified system characterised by definiteness of purpose from the elementary stages to the University. It had come into exisence as a result of varying. and often non flic-ting demands on the part of the community. Tho primary system had always occupied a prominent place in educational consideration, hut the secondary school had in his opinion, a too narrow programme of studies, caused by the idea that the secondary school was merely the preparation of the University. This programme, unless it was in preparation for one of the professions, was seen to he unproductive for most pupils either as a preparation for tho duties of life or as a stimulus to selfculture. The establishment of technical high schools and technical colleges was the outcome of a revolt against such a circumscribed view of , secondary education, and the advent of the free place pupil, and the suggestion for increasing the school age rendered reorganisation all the more imperative. The education that was demanded by a democratic society to-day was one that prepared a youth to overcome the difficulties that stood in the way of his material and spiritual advancement, and that from the beginning promoted his normal physical development through salutary environment and appropriate physical training ; that opened liis mind and let the world in through every natural power of observation and assimilation, and that cultivated hand power as well as head power, and that inculcated ail appreciation of beauty in nature and in art:. Tn short, education must be a. preparation for an active and useful life. Such an education could not be limited to the throe T{’s, because it must, acquaint the pupil with his material and social environment in order that any avenue to knowledge might be opened to him, and every incipient power receive appropriate cultivation. Any other course was not education, hut a postponement of education. Conspicuous advance had been made towards the ideal system in the primary school, and an effort was made to give the child The proper command over what might he termed tile tools of education. For instance, reading would he of no more value than sawing wood unless the child could acquire the power to gather ideas from the printed word, and so on. The socalled “frills’’ of education had all been introduced with this end in view. The question arose: Did the work ot the secondary school co-ordinate with that of the primary ? lie thought that it did not, for the requirements of the public service examinations, the m«»trieulatiori examinations, and the junior university scholarship examinations seemed to dictate the programme for most of our secondary schools. Ordinarily working from examinations had a distinctly narrowing effect on the minds of its pupils achieving academic success. There was also ft danger ol the brilliant pupils being attended to. and the mediocrities neglected. Educational pot-hunting, with its serious menace to the welfare of the ordinary hov or girl, was not unknown in New Zealand. The gftqi between tho primary and secondary schools was further widened by ignorance of the general aims of education, and there was a lack of properly-trained teachers pi the secondary schools. The old idol, too, of forms'll training, and the theory that mental power, however gained was applicable to any department of human activity, had proved to be false by experiment. Tho speaker went on to deal with the aims of the modern secondary school, and stated that such a school could only meet the legitimate demands cf society only by adopting

its methods to the changed needs of a progressive civilisation. The problems of the adolescent boy and girl were difficult, the latter particularly so, and tho speaker deprecated tho system of having a high school for girls run on practically the same system as one roi hoys. In fine what was needed was a really scientific and efficient reorganisation of the curriculum of primary and secondary schools and technical i colleges, so that the whole,-system became one. harmonious whole. j