REVERSAL.

Te Aroha News, Volume VIII, Issue 491, 23 July 1890, Page 2

REVERSAL.

It is a question worthy of consul era tion, whether yur elncation system, i 9 noth wrong in, one direction, whether we are, no,t tencltuig geography nnd history from the wrong, starting point. Should \vj work from, a point without, to a centre, or vice vewit?! In other wuriis, sliouhl we carry o«,r children, back to, the dim past, and work i,nw.ai;d& V>> the present 5 or should we conduct them fro:u tiu» visible present to. the dim past ? To, require a child to jimq* ment«lly from iis present MiiT>>niidinga to. the day* of the Norman Conquea* to. nsls an impossil ili'y. One may iimpress upon, acoild a lesson, one may ruakvi.t swallow* lost, one ciiu,u*>t make it digest but tljjs iis.i\ut education. Geography Iwgins.wikli E;mHxj»e,Asia, Africa and America, lwlei; the <AI regime. It achild is first taegkt to i?tU,fl«fStand the topographical aspect, of tk# place he lives in, and then thegeographical, he may perchanco acquire, a longing know more, After lie has. mastered the internal geography of thU' colony, he-may learn its relative position;, and then something of Australia, and thence his knowledge expands and em-. braces the otlieif continents. At an’' rate, knowledge so acquired is nv®i v genuine than knowledge of “ the uttermost parts of the easth,’* acquired by the old fashioned moles. The same* holds good in the teaching of history.. If history were taught backwards, it would be taught more effectively. The mind of a child starting from a basis of comprehensible facts, goes, back more, intelligently, and with increasing- light to the past. The object of education, should be to widen the view the-result, of tbu present system is to narrow amli 1 dim. if, More than one great thinker of modern days has spoken in favour of thealterafion, of mode to which we have, referred, and the backward and onwardi process.of teaching history and geography respectively, is being virtually adopted* though not professedly so in more than one education system.—Exchsnce.