MATRICULATION.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5368, 24 December 1928, Page 1

MATRICULATION.

NOT JUDGED BY EXAMINATIONS.

MATTER OF DEVELOPMENT.

“It is unwise of parents to measure a boy’s success by an examination certificate, as not all boys develop precisely at the same time, nor, at the time s,et down by schedule; according to age. Hence not all boys will have examination results to show at the end of two or three years.” So, said Father B. J. Ryan, rector of St. Patrick’s College, Wellington, at the; a®* nual prize-giving ceremony. “1 am not going to launch into an attack on the-examination system,” continued Father Ryan. “Maybe examinations serve some useful purpose, though by no mqang the most important, and in passing, one may remark that educational practice is gradually coming to recognise that examinationsj are not the most important test of education, nor an indication of success ip life. The most enlightened headmasters are decided on the re-< lativq unimportance of examinations as> a test. This educational practice, it is good' to note, is in aecprdl with th<* best traditions of Catholic practice. May we nev«|r forget it What I wanted to say especially, is this : many boys, will leave' school without a certificate. Two reasons may account for this—the boy’s gifts would not fit into a schedule. I have in mind an old boy of this college, first Doctor of Philosophy of Oxfoni, Doctor of Science of London, Professor of T.C., Dublin, a world’s authority on cytology. I doubt if he would ever, have fitted into » schedule educational system. Yet he grejw up here. He was allowed to develop naturally. Ho has brought honour to New Zealand. “The other reason is also most important, developments for some comes later than for others. Thip is the experience of all educators; Does the school fail, therefore, with such a boy ? Decidedly no. For the purpose of education is this—to open the boy’s mind, be it ever so little, to knowledge—to show him wHere to find it. how to find it; to teach him to admire it, to wanit it, not to hate it, as part of an examination syllabus; to place in his hands the golden key wherewith he may opep the palaces of the particular form of knowledge he wants later, when he undergjtandsi life."