The Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 1907. SCHOOL CLASSIFICATION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3769, 22 August 1907, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 1907. SCHOOL CLASSIFICATION.

The question of school classification will b? a subject of discussion by the press and education boards of the colony- -by reason of what has recently happened in Foxton. We have time and again upheld the headmaster’s action in the matter, also pointed out that the master acted strictly in conformity with the regulations. If parentsand committeemen had made them, selves acquainted with the regulations before expressing opinions,

much unpleasantness would have been avo cled. However, as certain people have sown the wind, so surely will they reap the whirlwind. Mr Adams will be commended for bis moral courage and thoroughness by the highest educational authorities throughout the Dominion, and this, we hope will, in some measure, palliate the bitter and unjust criticisms he has been subjected to. Yesterday’s N.Z. Times devotes a column of its space to the subject, and, by the way, did not extend the usual courtesy to acknowledge the source from whence it culled its information. As the matter is ol local importance we quote the article from the Times ;

The present system of classification of pupils in the primary schools, by which power is given to the headmaster, who is responsible only to the inspectors, to place any pupil in any class he pleases, has often been the subject of criticism, especially on the part, of parents whose children have been disrated, as they are always liable to be if their work proves unsatisfactory. It is of course, only natural that when a child is transferred from a higher to a lower class in the school its parents and others interested in its welfare, should wish to know the reason of such action on the part of the child’s teachers, and considerable trouble may often be caused by the failure of the parents to recognise the master’s right to disrate the child. This seems really to have been the case in Foxton lately, and resulted in a considerable disturbance of the old-fashioned scheme of advancement by yearly examination. The master found that many children in the school were not fit for the classes in which ho found them, and he accordingly sent them down, in some cases two standards. The consequence of this was a deluge of complaints to the committee regarding the headmaster’s action, and a special meeting was called for Ihe purpose of conferring with the master 011 the question. -The meeting produced several extremely interesting and amusing revelations.

The headmaster (Mr Adams) stated that he knew that trouble would eventually arise, as parents could not be expected ever to agree with the lowering of a child’s status in the school. To show how groundless the parents complaints really were, lie stated a few typical cases, which, he assured the committee, were only a few of many, and by no means the most startling with which he was acquainted.

The article then sets out in detail the several cases which have been copied from the Herald. The Times then concludes as follows :

The ease of the Poxton School is not an isolated one. In most schools within recent years the headmaster has exercised his prerogative, and has promoted or disrated pupils as he thought best. Certainly in very few schools has there been so ranch alteration of existing classification as there seems to have been at Poxton, but that is simply because there are very few teachers who are as little frightened of the average parent as Mr Adams must be. Nobody who has not had practical knowledge of our State schools within late years can imagine what some teachers have to tolerate from parents who object to the disrating of their children, who are always, of course, in their parents’ eyes, the shining lights of the school. And, as Mr Adams pointed out, a few disratings make far more stir than any number of promotions. Of these latter he says ; “ The public never get to hear of them, for the reason that parents do no as a rule ‘ buttonhole ’ and complain when their children have been promoted.” Mr Adams lias taken a stand in a matter in which many a man has flinched, and, as he is well within his rights, both legally and morally, his action is sure to do good, both for his own profession, and for the educational si/stem oj New Zealand. [The italics are ours.J