Yere Foster in the Scholos.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 78, 29 November 1884, Page 6

Yere Foster in the Scholos.

Tin reply by the Inspector of Schools to the minute of the Cil\ School Committee on the enfoicunent of the Veie Foster model of handwii'ing in })iil>lie schools is a vigoious and pointed answer. He says,: — ••When a coitain system of writing is adopted, ,imi rutain models cliom n, is thi-SN-toin to be earned out, and ,uc these mxleN to be copied 01 not? I* the work to be a leality 01 n sham '! Are the children tv be ti. uned to do wh.it they profess- to do, or something quire diilerent? It seems to me th.it theicean be but one answer to each ot the-e question*', an\ tiling that may be written to the contiary notwithstanding. AVhat if requiied is that an honest attempt at least shall be made by the pupil to follow the model he proteges* to follow. Is not this what is required in the arts and in mechanics ? Is not the art student and the young mechanic required to copy models with all the accuracy he may ? Originality can have play Hter on. The most dwi— trail* effects would, I teel sure, follow from the adoption of the proposal to let the whole body of assistants and pupil teachers and indeed pupils, set up a writing standard for themselves : for that is w hat the Committee's proposal amounts to. The result would not be wilting 'distinct and neat,' but such a jumble of writing apievails in other places. Neatness and distinction can be produced only by honestly following an appro\ed model. To exempt pupils who lu\e passed the fouith standaid from wiiting in copy-book? would, 1 am of opinion, have a very injurious effect. Pupils now pass the fourth standard at a very early age, when they have only just begun to w nte a fail hand, but aie not to be tiu-sted. to w alk alone, As pupils get on in the •sixth mdard they do not, as a rule, wiite so much in copy-books as pieviously ; but even up to the time of leaving school, few of those who remain lonu r e-t ha\e hands suiliciently founed to enable them to dispense altogether with -\-- tem itic insti action. Indn iduality in hand w liting comes but it natuially come- later." No one lias leally denied these position-. Tlie teaeheis are not univei-ally good model w liters, and it i- ior the Board, under tlje guidance of its Inspector, to decide the standaid. The dissatisfaction with the sys tern ha- aii-en from a veiy pre\alent opinion that pupilrj wilting ;i fair hand were plucked m examinations because the st\le wa^ not Veie To-ter's. Now it iwcil knuwn to be impossible to obtain absolute unifotmity ot style in wiiting — something of the style depends upon the constiuetion of the hand, and something on the tempeiamcnt ot the penman. Mr O'Sullivairs answer to the-e charges is an absolute denial. He sajs that children aie not plucked in their ex uninations because they cannot wiite Vere Foster; all that the Inspector aim at enforcing is a reasonable attempt to imitate the approved standard. If that be so, theie is nothing moie to be s a id ; no one would wish to lea% c the wiitin'_r in oui schools to the whim- 01 fad- of tcatheis. It ha*, liowe\ci, been the ojiinion of man\ mastois in the public school- that tins wiiting standard, good in its way, was being made a hobbyhorse, and lidden to death to the discouiagement of meiitoiiouv and painstaking pupils. The assurance of the Inspector iliat this ftai is not wellfounded will, we feel -ati-iitd, be lu>nl 1^ accepted.