MODERN EDUCATION.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5334, 3 October 1928, Page 4

MODERN EDUCATION.

PREMIUM ON MENTAL PRECOCITY. A VICIOUS SYSTEM. Writing in the "Quarterly Review,” the Rev. the Hon. Edward Lyttelton says':— “Two most capable and enlightened ladies run a school of high repute. (I mean by the last words school where the evil of ‘hustle,’ racket and overpressure are- so far mitigated.) They discoursed with eloquence and) c.onviction on the mqntal dissipation,, the want of leisure, or of any quiet time for growth. Does it need a profound study of psychology to prpnounice such a travesty of education to be sheer, insanity ? There are several influences at work, but the most bajneful and potent is the parents’ inSi|stance that their, girls shall pass the sc.hool certificate. “But what of the boys 1 The difference is this: Beys, who have always refused to; be crammed, secretly despise education except ;ajs a means of pelf. Girls-, who have accepted cramming and are damaged by it, believe in it and become teachers. It is to be noted that the mischief of .a, congested curriculum leading up to an impqrtiant examination consists not only in general dissipation, but; mcjre definitely ip. the- necessity, for practical purposes, that the .pupil shquld qualify for the examination, not, by a, tranquil, joyous process of self-feed-ing, but by being forced to imbibe facts prematurely ; that is, before the mind can relate them to experience. “That is c.alled cramming, and it is the most serious and the most universal mischief of the helter-skelter multiplication of subjects ; ;apd the mischief would tell upon boys just as upon girls, were it not that the former are endued witjb. a greater power of resistance festered by a long tradition of antagonism between! teacher and class. “When he is bored by being crammed, a young Anglo-Saxoai of the male sex can and doses shut his mind' and takes refuge in torpor. Thus he is •saved .most, effectively from overstrain ; so; much so that J doubt if there is any authenic record vf one of our. boys overworking himself at school. But along with a, grapid heritage of strong nerves, he gre-ws to hafe learning. Everything possible is done to* make bis school. I'ifej happy and healthy; but by sev<snteeji ye;a,rs of age the love o£ learning for its own sake has well-nigh * disappeared forever. The precise; effect on, girls isi first that cases of overstrai n. are nc>t unkno.wn; but everyonfe is on guard against th e danger. Next, they are singularly free from the traditional indocility which most) middle aged public school men loom on ajs part cf t,hej nature of thin gp. Giris allow themselves to be epammed without murmer of protest., jrhei result is hardly to be described) as mental indigestion, for indigestion suggests pa/in, and the griervous fact is that a sort of internal chaw? is induced which is accompanied not by pain but by a dim sense of ness.

Morally there is sonnet, king heroic about their endurance; ]but at the age of: eighteen th© high- .school product is a mai len whose \ mind has never bten allowed to \ assimilate naturally and repeatedly Hhe varied •knc-wledge which has been pi led upon it it is, true .that as ifhe.lml mths; go by the silent priestess, obliyio £teal ing upon the disorder, perlon us- her of ‘pure ablution’ like ft he sea abound ‘earth’s shores’; an* 1 hy .twenty-five the yqung 'women ai ’ e as ignorant as the young m'eJt..ißut ♦ ''-heir minds have lost frqshueiss. t “They bear, the marks tof a long a 'hd ■unavailing struggle -; anti even who. re the positive evidence is] less' tiecisiv e there is no doubt wh.atejver about thi? negative failure. The fa,c.ts—ifhe in-, formation— have mot beep, retained; if they been* the results would have- been move deplorable, .still. “As to the remedial measures, there isi little dagger, indeed, of any oveirprecipitabe reform/ It is mat that educatiofnists unable in -theory .to contem’piate change, or that -there is any general contentment -with- things as t/iey are; but there is a widospre ad moral paralysis in. presence of an organised system of -examination, so complicated anck inelastic - -, so buttressed up by recent ’tr.adition.and Apparently symptomatic, *of efficiency, that any change hqs c.oine to be n e " garde.d as quixotic, and? utopian.

“The evils, may be classified ithus (1) A spirit of rivalry and seJf-con-ciqusnesjs is engendered among children, a,nd continues ito pojisojn the true

motive and the actual process of learning all through adolescent-,e. (2) During adolsc-en.ee the training is chaotic and meaningless for the boys, and often oversitrains -the girls, and for both produces a shallow ,a|nd! (superficial mentality. (3) As selectiontests for professions, examinations incvitablv put a premium on precocity. “So far as .possible, every pupil should be allowed to imbibe knowledge! ajt his own pac,e ; that is, the one sjalutary -safeguard against overpressure and distance for learning is that the mediocre anjd the slow should be allowed -to take what they can without being, buffeted, chaffed, penalised, or convinced of their inferiority by recurrent competitions. As to the inert boys, a certain number of whom at fifteen will probably be irresponsive, a policy allowing of Some temporary markingtime will be advisable. “The; slow boy, too, thquah he will not be a monument of learning when he reaches eighteen, will knew something ; and what he knows will be naturally a;nd spontaneously acquiredThe faculty of apprehending, which no boy is; wholly without, and which is antirely distinct from the faculty of being passively crammqd, will have been continuously exercised instead of being atrophied. . “Above all, they will go, esut into the world with a r.easonabe amount of eonfidtence in themselves, and with some .disposition to ga on learning, by using their minds in the right way, linking the new to the old. On girls the effect will be no loss-, beneficial; indeejd, much more so, as the mischief ha» told mere banjefully upon them. In short, the time has, come fqr a clear and decisive choice between two, psychological theories offered) for Cjiir acceptance. The, child’s mind is either a passive recepta|ple into which uns.or.ted facts , may be poured to, be retained for (subsequent, use, or it is a delicate a,pd mysterious organism constructed so as to be injured by cramming, and boundlessly benefited) by self-activity. “Examinations must be; employed for purposes o-f selection ; but; it is a mere counsel of prudence that they should never again afford the only criterion- of a. young man’s fitness for important undertakings.”