MR. FORSTER ON EDUCATION.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5240, 9 January 1878, Page 3

MR. FORSTER ON EDUCATION.

The Daily News (October 25) asserts that Mr. Forster never touches the subject of education without striking out some valuable suggestion, and bis speech to the Huddersfield Mechanics’ Institute on Tuesday evening was no exception. He showed that, so far as school accommodation was concerned, the problem of education had been practically solved in many parts of England; and that we were in .a fair way to solve the second part of the prob’em—that of securing regular attendance, without which school .accommodation is useless. But he also expressed an opinion that very much was still to be desired, so far as the quality of the teaching given was concerned. The very favorite notion that elementary education such ns the children of artisans require consists merely of reading, writing, and ciphering, meets with little support from Mr. Forster, who does not see why an English lad of poor parents should he compelled to be content at a rate-supported school with these dry husks, while German and Swiss boys of tire same age acquire an elementary knowledge'of science, history,-and political geography. This touches a question which agitates all schoolmasters, and which must be looked to closely by the Education Department. Without saying that the popular conception .of the three R.’s, as containing the sum and substance of elementary' education, is as erroneous as the old scholastic idea of tho sufficiency of the trivium or quadrivinm, it is manifest that there is great difficulty in getting an ordinary boy to take real interest in what he is taught, or to acquire a permanent taste for reading, if he is not studying subjects which are in themselves interesting. Wo cannot expect every urchin of fourteen to quit a Board school with all these splendid attributes ; but we might hope that even at fourteen he would be put in

the way of giving himself in, the leisure hours of his after years a “liberal” education, and of acquiring intellectual tastes and habits, if, as Mr. Forster suggests, in the process of teaching, reading the elementary facts of science and history were taught. But all this presupposes a remodelling of our school books, and good school books are almost ns hard to get as good epics. The Olobe (October 21) says :—“ There ought to be a carefully graduated system by which a persevering and gifted lad might rise from a village school to the university. Thus the nation would receive the full benefit of the noblest energies of each new generation ; and at the same time schoolmasters would have no motive for neglecting children who stand most in need of their help. If Mr. Forster is really anxious tor the elevation of the people, it is in this direction he ought to strive to influence public opinion. Our theory is not that scholarships should be founded by the State. Far too many burdens are already thrown on the Government—that is, on the taxpayers—and we should wish to see the load lessened rather than increased. Tho system for which we plead is one that ought to be created by the public spirit and generosity of individuals; and we firmly believe that the private energy which has done so much in the past for the true grsatness of England would, if properly appealed to, be quite equal to this new task—one of the best that has ever been imposed upon it. The object will never be gained, however, if opinion is misled by the vague and sentimental teaching of men like Mr. Forster and his friends.