The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1928 THE COSTLY TEXT-BOOK

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 541, 19 December 1928, Page 10

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1928 THE COSTLY TEXT-BOOK

JJREEDOM is dawning for many young people wliose schooldays 4 have recently ended. For others the graduation from primary to secondary education is in prospect, and for younger children still the transition from sheltered home life to the first shy contacts of school life lies ahead. Thus for a large number of children the period is fraught with great possibilities and chances which may have a far-reaching effect upon their future lives; hut it is also a time of anxiety for parents, not only because it is at present difficult to place children in congenial occupations, but also because, for those whose children are only just embarking on primary or secondary school careers, there are many problems to be solved and a great deal of expense to be borne. The irritating feature, to many parents, is that much of the expense seems unnecessary. The strange lack of uniformity in the text-books used among different schools is a cause of much heart-burning. In spite of comprehensive professions of solicitude for the position of parents, the education authorities in New Zealand have not yet succeeded in placing the text-book system upon a consistent basis. A book that is considered the last word in one year may he dubbed an obsolete encumbrance the next. The position is bad enough in primary schools, but among the secondary schools it is deplorable. Demands totalling £2 for each child at the beginning of every fresh school year are not uncommon. To this has to be added a substantial sum for exercise books, pads, and similar trifles, which are used and discarded in profusion during an average year. Sports fees, fines, and other minor tributes help to keep the head of the house delving deeply into his pockets. It is no negligible consideration for a family man, this business of having two, three or more of “his family learning how Caesar conquered Gaul, and how two sides of a triangle are infallibly greater than the third. Looking back on his own schooldays, the wage-earner—and most New Zealanders are wage-earners, whether their salary is paid by cheque or in the more plebeian envelope—recollects those half-forgotten tomes which were the bane of his boyhood. There was a gentleman named Trotter, who knew something of grammar, Then came the erudite Mr. Nesfield, who knew even more about it. A whole procession of sinister figures, Messrs. Baker, Hall, Knight, Stevens, Pendlebury, Workman, and Bourne, dealt in the abstruse themes of various forms of mathematics. One Siepman, had a lot to say about French, and said it most expensively. A green-backed Longman was always sure of a place on the schoolboy’s bookshelf, and English historians supplied dates without number. These hooks were comparatively cheap in the days when father went to school, but to-day the prices have soared. Moreover, some of the familiar authors have lost favour, and new academic powers have arisen.

The associated headmasters of New Zealand schools could do very good work, in the interests of parents, if they endeavoured to arrange a uniform roster of text-hooks for all ■schools. It is a question upon which there can he wide divergences of opinion, but an effort to bring the selection within narrower limits would confer a wonderful boon upon parents, and would assist in the formulation of some sort of scheme aiming at uniform bindings, a central distribution system, and consequent lower prices. There is also the question of New Zealand history and geography, on which most children are appallingly ignorant. The romantic incidents of New Zealand history are hidden from most children until, after leaving school, they can branch out upon study of their own. Before that they know infinitely more about the French Revolution and the Wars of the Roses than they do about the Maori Wars of 60 years ago.