Manawatu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY.) The Oldest Daily Newspaper on the West Coast. THURSDAY, APRIL 30, 1885. THE "CRAM" SYSTEM.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IX, Issue 124, 30 April 1885, Page 2

Manawatu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY.) The Oldest Daily Newspaper on the West Coast. THURSDAY, APRIL 30, 1885. THE "CRAM" SYSTEM.

Mr Bindgn, the Inspector of Schools for the Educational District, has just issued his first report.' Therein he makes some timely referencea to a subject which has been alluded to more than once m these columns, viz., what is generally known as the " cram" system. "jPupils," says Inspector Bin»on, " are forced like so many hot-house plants. Books containing mere analyses of the subjects upon which they treat are put into their hands, when the blackboard and chalk, map, or chart ought to be their only books, so to speak. They are encouraged to commit everything to memory, without m the least understanding what they are about, or at best they are only told by some explanation. 11 This is just the very mistake into which so many teachers fall, and which, as a matter of fact," is the outcome of an enforced conformity with standard regulations and requirements. As an instance of the lack of the practical application of the rules of arithmetic, the report states that one of the most useful rules, viz., practice, was m some cases not known, even by scholars ostensibly further advanced, and there was a general inability to work out a simple bill and receipt it. The Inspector explains these palpable shortcomings as due partly to defective, teaching "pupils are taught rules not principles, they are told what to do, instead of being led to deduce it." In few schools was mental arithmetic attempted, and the inability of even 6th Standard pupils to solve mentally the simplest questions was surprising. In reference to standard examinations the Inspector hit the nail on the head when he remarked : —The " demon percentage, 1 ' is said to be " rampant m this district, 1 ' and " most teachers seem to think of nothing else" Everything is made subservient to cramming. This is just where the evil lies, aud until a systematic and intelligent imparting of education takes the place of cramming, our schools will fail m the great object of their existence, viz, to enable the youth to realize the utility of what they are being taught, as applicable to the daily avocations of life when they will exchange the little world of the school for that m which they have to make theirliving, and occupy varied positions suitable to their intellectual attainments and amount of knowledge acquired.