CONTINUATION CLASSES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 132, 13 September 1910, Page 8

CONTINUATION CLASSES.

AN EDUCATIONIST'S VIEWS. Some interesting observations on the subject of. the proposal to develop in New Zealand a system of continuation classes were made by Mr. W. S. La Trobe, Director of the Wellington Technical School, when discussing the ques-| tiou during the course of a conversation, with a Dominion reporter. Mr. La Trobe said that he desired to make it { quite clear that he regarded the proposal' as in ho way revolutionary. He pointed to the known fact that compulsory continuation classes had been from time to time advocated by educationists in New [ Zealand, though hitherto without eli'ect. This result, he said, was due simply to' a failure on the part of New Zealand-, ers to recognise the merit of the pro-1 posal. It had now been adopted in Scotland, and had been successful, so far as one could hear. This had naturally i brought it into prominence in othar English-speaking countries, and compul- ] sory continuation work had now come to be viewed in a practical light where hitherto it had been accorded only academic consideration. Mr. La Trobe stated that he considered the proposed continuation instruction hardly second in importance even to! primary education. I "The point of the whole thing is," he said, "that boys and girls leaving I school at the age of thirteen or four-1 teon usually do not take up any trade or permanent occupation for another. two years at least. For a couple of' years or so they are engaged in vari-1 ous odd jobs that serve to bring in a little grist to the mill. Meantime they,; in ino.it eases, deteriorate rapidly, for-' getting what they have been taught, and learning little that will be of use to them in after life unless their parents take in hand the task of continuing their education. On the influence' of parents it is impossible in this case] to rely. A parent is not expected byj our paternal Government—or by any| sort of Government as a matter of fact —to supervise the primary education of. his children, and lie cannot be expected to undertake the task when they have passed primary school age. Consequently children get neither in their homes nor at school any special training during these two years, although they might, be profitably spent, particularly by boys, | in preparing for their life work. The; country would profit, if it paid the par- 1 cuts of boys the five shillings or so a! •week they may earn in the year or twoj following* their departure from the pri-. Mary school and sent them again to school." The question of compulsory continuation classes, Mr. La Trobe continued, had come up at length on its merits. The proposal was so obviously sound that it was bound to come into prominence sooner or later. When parents came to recognise its merits it would certainly elicit their approval.