MODERN EDUCATION.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5320, 31 August 1928, Page 3

MODERN EDUCATION.

IS LEARNING MADE TOO EASY 1 THE PRESENT-DAY TREND. That "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” has been ani accepted axiom ever since our nursery days. But what is going to be the effect of “alkplay apd no work” upon our moder^.acks—ai|d Jills (aS|ks A.T.H., in “The Qu'een”). Fob that ip. where ths trend of present-day educational ideas seems to be, guiding us. “Work should be play ta the child ; learning is » pleasure; there is; no need for drudgery.” So say the theojr isbsj and le,a,ve us to conduct this comfortable doctrine; to its 1 logical cojnclusiion. But although this sounds plausible enough to the ear, there are very few with any practical experience of educational work who do. not realise in their hearts that these are only half-truths ; they know that nothing really worth learning can be learnt without a certain amount of drudgery, and tha.t “Reading without Tears,” that old friend of our. child; hood, was only so, called because- experience had proved that learning to read for mast children did; involve some pain and crying. It is perfectly true that some teachers sjiow more art than others in) gilding the pill; some are more stimulating 'and arouse more, interest than Jiheir. fellows. But fo ( r all that, the 'hard kernel of fact regains that you cannot play , Beethoven’s Sonatas " without u. long and tediqus. course of scales ; that you cannot teach history satisfactorily by pictures affd pleasant anecdotes alo,ne'; that Latin „ mar is not thoroughly mastered by the oral method without the pupil’s realising that he is learning it; nor ca,n a really useful knowledge of chemistry be acquired by listening to a s,erie's of amusing explosions. All these are “aids” to education;, but they are not the coriclusiojn of the whole matter. A ce-rtaj.n amount of drudgery is inevitable in learning, nor. can any useful branch of knowledge be thoroughly assimilated without ®ome weariness tq the flesh. Nor wo.uld it be well if it were otherwise. • For. nothing is truer than that the. value we set on our possessions i ;SI based! upon the: effort it has cost us to acquire them. We have travelled far. frqm the ■ days when a master taught with a boqk in one hand apd a stick in the ■other.* Such barbarism is out-of-date. Yet it. is almost a debatable question whether that system wa,s not justified by its results. Accurate learning became a habit, even if instilled by fear., an(d some knowledge, w'as knocked into even the mopit recalcitrant. It • was not a aystem that suited all, but no, system could- do that. The neurotic and the sensitive Were sacrificed to the normal average young barbarian. But can it be maintained that more is achieved by the more humane methods of to-day, whereby the capable but lazy all too often! lewade the that is their due. OrbHius has gone, but it canndt be denied, that Horace learnt his lessons. The’ modern boy is quife clever, enough to exploit this l.a.test theory ■to the uttermost. When work is irksome; he finds he has. only to complain that it is irksojme and the blame is ascribed to his teacher’d ineptitude. Such an idea not only permits him to be slipshod and inaccurate in all that he does., but has an even- more disastrous result. Many young people nowadays! arrive almost at years, of So-called discretion without really kflowing the meaning of the word “wo ( rk.” They have had to grind at subjects they disliked, or apply themselves strenuously to some' task that was disagreeable. Nothing distasteful has even been permitted to be force! on them, and yet work itself is often enough distasteful to the yosung idea. The effect on theiir characters ea,nnfllt but be bad. Closely allied with this desire to evade work is the notion that money can do anything. This is an effort-, less era, a penny-in-the-slot .agte : . What wjth motor-cabs, aeroplanes, telephones, and wireless, everything possible is done by wealth tbj mitigate personal effort. So many labour-sav-ing devices have been invented that men have lost the keen desire tp labour, and with i.t the knowledge, of hqw to labo.un effectively. The decreasing number of labourers not unnaturally grows ever more discojn- . tested, and the inceasing, army of drones more obstrusive. Ye,t the object of quch devices is surely not that we, may avoj-d work, but that we may all work more speedily and more efficiently. There should be more than an etymological connection between Industry with a capital I and the adjective industrious. One! reason of the modern attitude of mind ns undoubtedly the facility with which good education can be prqcured. In ancient days; the opportunity for learning was hard to come by. Consequently those who were lucky enough to gain.it made the sfull*®t use of their time, and were never deterred fr.qrn making progress in their studies by being tsfet down to learn something that did not appeal tq th'eir interest at the moment. It is not so ma-h(y years ago Since children in numerous places, particularly in Scotland, had to trudge many miles to school, and often went hungry in the middle of thq day. This was not right, but knowledge acquired at such a price toqk on a value of its! own) Learning was a serious business, and ot to be regarded lightly. But nowadays ajl this is* changed. The grim necessity of learning is never allowed to obtrude itself upon a child’s; mind; whilst in our public if a boy does not like La,tin he .persuades his patents, to let him give it up -and do some “more useful” subject. What could be mqre useful, did. he know it, than to discipline himself to Icarnjjng something that he found hard and- uninteresting ? For school, after all, is nqt the place, to learn one’s work in life, but to learn how to learn, and for that discipline is needed. Youth is the time to get tlie “Work habit,” and if children leave scho.nl without .having been trained to apply thiemselvep with diligence to an unpleasant task they

have missed one of the main qlcinents qf education. It need not be thought that a.U learning must «f necessity be presented in a dull and -unattractive form. There should be so much in almost tiny subject that can be madq interesting. But children ought to bo, ma.de to realise tiiat the attractive parts are not everything, ap/d above all sho.uld be made to feel .that scp'Cftimes faye that seems, unappetising mutt be swallowed. The risk is that they should feel no need for, effort on the*r part. There is such a fault as making .things toa easy. You may observe the process, at work in every department of life. The lawn must be mown by a mqtor mawer; the cows must be milked by machinery. The ground is ploughed by a motor, tractor, and the' corn sheaves, gathered by an automatic binder The house is dusted by a vacuumcle'arer, Mu.dc must be provided-, not by our qwn amateurish efforts but by a, pianola o,r. the Wireless Symphony Orchestra. All we, -need to do i-s to, sit down and turn a switch. There is a very real da,nge.r in all tliis. Older people of the present generation have not ceased to marvel at it all; but with children it is different. • They have never known it otherwise. They have never seen a hcjuse scrupulously and Iqbqrioucly cleaned by hand every day, .and if through any sudden -emergency they are called upon to db it, they think it monstrously hard and unreasonable. What will such spirit produce in another fifty years ? The root of the evil is in the Schools. If children are brought up in the idea that work is always to be avoided Where possible the day will come when laziness will be the characteristic virtue' of the whole land.It is before the young that the dignity of labour, needs upholding. Unless some attempt is made to prove to the cqmin-g, generation that work for work’s sake is in its,elf valuable, it will come to be regarded merely as an unnecessary evil, or, at the highest, as the means by which idleness may b'e achieved.