The Hokitika Guardian THURSDAY, JAN. 12th, 1922. THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH.

Hokitika Guardian, 12 January 1922, Page 2

The Hokitika Guardian THURSDAY, JAN. 12th, 1922. THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH.

The report of the Departmental Committee appointed by the President of the British Board of Education to inquire into the position occupied by English in the educational system of England has aroused considerable interest throughout the country, and has commended itself to all who realise the full meaning and possibilities of national education as a. whole. The opinion of uVLr H. A. L. Fisher that the report will exercise a profound influence on the teaching of the English language and literature is readily endorsed by those who have in even a general way considered its various features. The fact that the terms of reference also gave the Committee, of whom Sir Henry Newbolt is chairman the further privilege of advising as to how the study of English may best be promoted in schools, of all types, and universities, with special regard to the requirements of a liberal education, the needs of business, the professions and public services, as well as the relation of English to other studies, and the additional fact that to assist them in • such a complex and difficult task oral evidence was given by over one hundred witnesses, while valuable information was supplied from authoritative scholastic, qommercia'l and' industrial sources, testifies abundantly to the invaluable nature of their published considerations and conclusions. The Committee are convinced that English must form the essential basis of a liberal education for all English people, and in the earlier stages of education it should be the principal function of all schools of whatever type to provide this basis. Of this provision the component parts they suggest are, first systematic training in the sounded speech of standard English correct pronunciation and clear articulation; second, systematic training in the use of standard English to secure clearness,

and correctness, both in oral expression and in writing; third, training j in reading, under which head will be j included reading aloud with feeling and expression, the use of books as sources of information and means of study, and finally the use of literature as a possession and a source of delight, a personal intimacy and the gaining of personal experience. Dealing with the importance of English in the elementary schools, the Committee point out that its teaching is “the body and vital principle of all school activity,” and the report is “a protest” against the prevalent delusion that the only education elementary children should have is that which ‘has exclusively in view the making of miners or factory girls engineers or cooks.” A parallel delusion is that education makes a man “4o good for manual labour.” The section of the report which discusses the needs of business in regard to English contains some interesting evidence from various business and commercial firms The Committee definitely states that the chief “need of business” is a liberal supply of young entrants trained to express themselves in spoken and written English with facility and correctness. and possessed of that broad outlook which wide reading and the study of literature may be expected to provide. With equal clearness they assert that this supply, so far from being liberal, is at present almost non exidtent and, as proof, reference is made to the fact that firms from whom evidence w f as obtained complained, often bitterly, of defects in spelling punctuation, vocabulary, and sentence sitruotuirei. Commercial) and technical schools are, in the opinion of the Committee, “the weakest spot in the educational system.” The Committee contend that by themselves technical and commercial studies are not a complete education, as they do not even provide those who take them with all they require for efficient (bread-winning. They claim, therefore, that it is in the highest interest of the young student, the trade he seeks to serve, and the nation at large that technical instruction should be supplemented with an English humanism in which the study of literature of history, and of the language must be made actual by being brought closely into touch with the main preoccupations of the student.