Rangitikei Advocate. MONDAY, MAY 3, 1909. EDITORIAL NOTES.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9434, 3 May 1909, Page 4

Rangitikei Advocate. MONDAY, MAY 3,1909. EDITORIAL NOTES.

THE present system of technical instruction in this country has many critics, probably far more critics than defenders. Methods of education are unfortunately a"snbject on which everyone feels capable of offering an opinion, and often She force with which opinions are expressed la a measure of the Ignorance rather than the wisdom of the critics. In connection with the new methods schoolmasters lament that time is taken from their invaluable teaching in order to instruct boys in woodwork and girls in cookery.' Parents join with murmurs that they have no patience with the new fangled notions which pretend that gardening or cooking or carpentry is school work. The local committees in charge of the school find that there is a very poor attendance at the evening classes and come to the conclusion that either the system 'is wrong or that the people 'of New Zealand are very slow in taking advantage of the educational opportunities offered. As an example of the criticism which is so common, we may quote from the report of the householders meeting at the Central School, New Plymonth. After referring to the the syllabus, one speaker declared that nowadays the school system aimed at cramming a lot of useless stuff into the heads of the children, and the parents should endeavour to have the teachers relieved: of those subjects which had no practical] effect in building up the minds of the children. The Rev. Mr Osborne then took up his parable and said that he would like to see the children made more thoroughly conversant with the “three R’s,” which he declared were not being thoroughly taught in any school in New Zealand. If a boy wanted to be a carpenter, let him he apprenticed to a carpenter; if a gardener, let him go to a gardener, and ao on ; but it was nonsense to expect to be taught those things at a primary school.

IN considering any new system of education or of anything else it is necessary to distinguish between the principles on which it is founded and the methods by which they are applied. We are not concerned to defend all the methods employed in technical education at the present time as probably time will show that they can be much improved, but we must defend the ideas which underly them, because they seem justified alike by common sense and experience. Until comparatively recently the idea was held that education meant literary education only and that books were the chief repositaries of knowledge. nntil the invention of moveable type four and a half centuries ago books were practically inaccessible to ninetentbs of the population, and the world seemed to get on very well without them. Education then was restricted to the few, and as it became more general the system which was supposed to be the right one for the few was extended to the many regardless of the fact that it was quite unseated to the. vast majority who had to earn their living by manual labunr. This mistake has been realised now and an attempt is being made to train the hands and eyes of pupils instead of filling their brains with facts which are tipped into their minds as into a rubbish bin. The new development of eduoatiqn needs better teachers than the old system, and an attempt is being made to provide them. In the-meantime it is well to refrain

from throwing cold water on a movement which is in the right direction even If some of the methods adopted are an easy subject for criticism.

THE report of Wanganui Education Board contains the following remarks on technical which are well worth the consideration, of those who hastily condemn all that is being done in that direction:—“‘lt is thought by some that technical training is being foisttd upon an ouwiliing people for no bettor reason than its vogue in other lands. Such do not reflect on the dangers of a purely literary education (by which la here meant education aolely through the medium of books), else they would view the matter in a different light. What is the main cause of the present dissatisfaction in India? It is very largely the re°' salt of misdirected education. Why ia it that the unemployed question is always with na in a moreXor less acute form—in a terribly acute form in Britain at the present It is the rebalt of misdirected education to a very large extent. Were people taught to use their hands in conjunction with their brains in their youth, [they would not in their man hood|readily become helpless appendages to machinery, or cease to be real factors in the development of the state. Whence come the flotsam and jetsam of society—the wastrels, the ne’er-do -wells and the “Weary Willies”? They are to a large extent the product of misdirected or incomplete education. If people were alive to their own interests they wonld welcome practical and technical instruction in every shape and form, and parents would encourage their young people to bend their necks to the yoke for a time—if they cannot look npon attendance at the Technical Schools as a pleasure ; so that through this salutary discipline they may look forward with confidence to filling an honourable position in society. ”