THE COMPETITIONS QUESTION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 122, 27 April 1925, Page 4

THE COMPETITIONS QUESTION.

The growth of the musical and elocutionary societies in New Zealand has been a very marked feature in the life of the country during the last five years. The competitions, which are now held in almost every town of importance in the Dominion, attract a great deal of interest and are, generally speaking, ivell attended by the public. They undoubtedly develop latent talent on the part of the competitors, and call forth all that is best in them. But it is questionable whether it is advisable to encourage young children entering upon them. The Competition Societies’ Conference which met in Wellington last week was addressed by Mr J. Caughley, Director of Education, who spoke guardedly but none the less pointedly on the unwisdom of placing young children under the intense strain which is attendant in so many cases upon the competitions, particularly those for children 1 under ten years ol age. In Mr Caughley’s opinion, and we largely agree with him, children should not be asked to compete in this public way until they reach the age of fourteen y.ears, and, as he further remarked, it would he wiser ll they were sixteen years old before they appeared in public. Precocity in children is not, generally speaking, a good thing, nor is it wise to encourage it, and there will be pretty general agreement with Mr Caughley s idea that “a child under ten years is not in a natural condition to express itself in the way it should. Flie whole trend of modern education. Mr Caughley says, “is to allow the child to express itself naturally in whatever particular subject it shows ability,” and he is of opinion that “the societies are making a mistake in asking the children to put forward a finished work when they should he feeling their way.” The school choir singing, which the societies are fostering, is, on the other hand, a good tiling. There is, as Mr Caughley says, no individual effort required in such singing, and the children respond naturally to it. Nothing is more worthy of encouragement than choir singing and it is scarcely necessary to point out that, in the celebration of church anniversaries, particularly those ol Sunday schools, the great attraction is that of the special choir singing, that of the children being particularly pleasing to the general run ol churchgoers. By encouraging the presence of choirs from our State schools at their public gatherings, the .Competitions Societies are doing a good work, and one which can hardly tail to increase the interest of the children in the singing classes at their respective schools. For the children, this collective singing is .much better than the individual effort. Such latent talent as individual children possess, except in very exceptional cases, would be better developed during their teens, rather than prior to them. So far as the work of the Competitions Societies goes in other directions, it is certainly exercising a big influence upon both the musical and elocutionary worlds. The Wellington Conference took a decided step forward in resolving upon the formation of a New Zealand Federation of Competitions Societies, as a preliminary to a further extension of their activities, which are of both educational, artistic and social benefit to the community, and are tending to develop much latent talent in our young people.