PASSING NOTES.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 977, 29 December 1882, Page 2

PASSING NOTES.

4^ ' (A l! communications to be addressed “ Aladdin ,” office of this paper.) The County Council hold their next meeting ou the 3rd January next. Let us hope these gentlemen will remove the stain that remains upon us at present. Further silence and inactivity on their part regarding the auditor’s serious charge of embezzlement of the County funds by the treasurer is simply insufferable. The public and your humble servant will insist upon knowing how this matter stands. Either a crime has been committed or not. County councillors have a care or you will have a hornet’s nest about your ears. Have you ever noticed how dull reports of Parliamentary proceedings are« The report of a great debate generally runs thus :—The Land Bill.—The Minister of Lands moved the second reading in a long able speech in which he reviewed the land laws since the foundation of the colony, and pointed out how the new Bill would meet all the defects in the present system. The honorable gentleman resumed his seat amid great applause, Mr Jones said he disagreed with the principle of the Bill. Mr Thomson said he objected to the third section, but would support the Bill, and so on for two columns. At the end of the “ catalogue ” how much does the reader know about the Land Bill or its principles, the defects in the present system, or Mr Jones’ actual reasons for supposing the new Bill will not meet them. Surely—amongst all the members—some one says a bright thing, and gives a good reason for or against the adoption of the Bill. Good reporter, sweet monster, honest villain, send us just one good speech on each side. We are the “ catalogue ” of dulness. My friend Grildrig’s wife presented him the other day with an infant. The nurse, beaming with smiles brought “ Grildrig junior ”to his father. “ Ah, shure he’s the very image of yo ” said she, “ but plaze God he’ll grow out of that, sor !” If you look into it there is much tact in this speech. What could be better adapted to secure Grildrig’s . affection for his little india-rubber representative than her detection of an impossible likeness to himself; but Grildrig is ugly. What could better secure Grildrig’s respect for the second generation than to assure him as an expert that although like him it would plaze God “ grow out of that.” In America and New Zealand State Education is carried on upon much the same principles, In America the system was for a long time considered perfect. In New Zealand we are still of that opinion. It remains for ns to discover what is admitted in the other country—namely, that in the department of public instruction Red tape order and system have degraded the public schools into mere machines for cramming. An American writer of note says:—lt is the excessive amount of system in our wholesale methods of teaching that prevents the best results in any department. The pressure of quantity does not give, the teacher time to monld character. Dr Arnold himself could not have been Dr Arnold if he had been required by a Board of Education to teach the greatest possible amount of arithmetic and geography within a given time. It is probable that Dr Arnold would have been considered wanting in the requirements of an school teacher of the present day. -It is certain be would have found himself hopelessly trammelled by tbe expectations of his employers. The teacher—who would fain * be less of a machine —who would like to take time to do some thorough training, gets no opportunity. He must bring largest possible crop of arithmetic and geography at the end of the year ; all his better work in building character will count for nothing. The individuality of the school-master is utterly repressed. He is a mere cogwheel in a great machine —a hearer of lessons, a worker for examination week. As a rule in New Zealand an inspector of schools is - a vain pedant, a walking depot of folly and general information.. Will the day ever come when he will recognise the hopelessness of cramming into a child at school that mass of incongruity he calls a good education ? Will it ever dawn upon him that true education is the cultivation in the schoolboy of habits and inclinations likely to promote his happiness as a man, and tbe repression of those likely*to have a contrary effect ? When will Education Boards recognise that it is more important that a boy should leave school knowing little but with a desire to learn, full of life, and with a desire to do right for right’s sake than that he should cram himself full of undigested facts, and leave school without animal spirits a. little pedant thinking because he knew most at school, that he has learnt all. ;i Al'addin. "