Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News AND UPPER THAMES ADVOCATE. SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 1895.

Te Aroha News, Volume XI, Issue 1732, 20 April 1895, Page 2

Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News AND UPPER THAMES ADVOCATE.

SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 1895.

. ‘ TJilfl above all—to thine own self bo trae, Vnd it must follow ag (he night the day Thou oaueb not then be false to any man.' , Sll A tt BSPEAIIE.

Ir was - boasted in .Parliament last session that New Zealanders were tho best educated nation in the world, and we constantly hear our educational system praised as all but perfect. The. fact is that we have a system, but some eleven or twelve the inspectors of each district interpreting the standard regulations with different degrees uf strictness. We'shall never have one system till inspection is centralized and salaries arranged on a eoloniall scale. As regards the Legislative ’ Councillors boast a fair test is the de- ,

groe in which a taste for reading is developed in, our boys and girls. It must be remembered that the bulk of our children leave school after passing the fourth standard. How many of these could read a newspaper or' even a penny dreadful with either understanding themselves or profit to their hearers ? , Hovv few care to read-any-thing, not that we. blame' them but the system under: which they are taught; or rather not taught! We notice that Mr Petrie/ the newly appointed Chief Inspector of Schools in this District devotes the greater part of his report to the defective teaching of this subject. 7As he very truely' points out reading is far away, the most important subject taught in our schools.. A boy who 1 leaves school able, to read, with intelligence, can master any subject with the possible exception of mathematics, though why mathematics should be excepted wo fail to see. At present he finds the modes of teaching seriously defective. In the lower classes indeedtreading. is; too-often in vogue with every paragraph which is much the same as'rif the teacher guided the pupil’s hand at every letter in writing. A child will never learn reading by such a mothod, anymore than he would learn swim ming with Professor Panuell’s hand ■always under his chin. Even in the sixth standard intelligent loading is by ho means the rule. Mr Petrie alleges as the principal causes of the failure / over large classes in town schools, and in single handed country.: schools, comparative neglect of the junior classes in favour of those whose success in the annual examinations will tell in the teacher’s favour, while he may be a hundrod miles away when the junior reflects crodit, or the reverse on his successor, and the Inspector therefore depreciates frequent changes. We think, however, he might have gone deeper to the root of the; matter. As long as a teacher’s bread depends oh every boy and girl,»stupid, or clever, , going up the standavd ladder a. step a year, so long our education will only be cramming the pupil for the Inspectional market. Children are simply wound up to concert pitch' for the ,6th of November, we may suppose, and on a moderate estimate not half would pass a fortnight before or a month after. Inspector’s examinations are how discarded in Standard I and 11, why not go the whole hog, so far as making a teacher’s living depend on the percentage of passes or failures ? In Eugland- teachers are paid on acr count of, the general efficiency of the school, not by the leaden rule we have here, under which a teacher in. sole charge of a, small country school is always under the' sword of Damocles. How, he manages, passes our comprehension, twenty-five pupils in. perhaps six standards and two primer classes, attending in various degrees of irregularity, ail to be taught' by one man or ‘woman. Better work for Dan Fallon j than that. We must remember too that in the matter of readers children ! here are at a, great disadvantage as compared with those at home. There j books are far cheaper, people are not; so migratory in their habits, and there ! are few houses Which cannot boast of j something in the shape of a library And after all, the school will never teach reading unless complemented by •home practic.e/'/ We, who know, the' district longer than Mr Petrie, may say, that thei’e has been a decided advance of late years. ? The readers are far more adapted to the childrens’. capa-* city; McMillan’s sixth reader was, forinstance, to a large extent beyond the comprehension of many a University graduate. They are also far more interesting aqd generally instructive. It is a farce to give the beginner purely literary pabulum. Give him,; good English histoiy, fictions, travels or adventures, not Wordsworth’s Ode on Merriortabily, or Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity, with which Messrs MacMillon’s editor, chocked him. \