EDUCATION COMMISSION

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 316, 4 July 1912, Page 8

EDUCATION COMMISSION

EVIDENCE IN WANGANTJI. By Telegraph—Press Association. Wanganui, Wednesday. The Education Commission resumed its sittings this morning. Mr. W. Luxford, secretary of the Wanganui School Committees' Association, gave evidence that the committees now recognised that the transfer of teachers was in the best interests of education. He believed the time was coming when schools would have to be centralised. He favored school libraries and thought school holidays should be the same throughout New Zealand, and there should be a common interpretation of the syllabus. The Rev. J. McKenzie advocated Bible reading in schools and repeating the Lord's Prayer. He suggested the adoption of the New South Wales system. Mr. Louis Cohen, M.A., barrister, and member of the University Senate, drew attention to the degradation of the English spoken in New Zealand. He did not consider the university matriculation papers properly dealt With English. He said the parents generally speak very bad English, thus spoiling the effeets of the teachers' work. The English spoken in the Dominion was becoming more degraded' each year. Pupils in secondary schools spoke* better English than children in the primary schools. He thought education boards were wrongly constituted. They should represent the people principally concerned, and the interests of education. Members should be educated and fully qualified to deal with experts, and have a thorough grounding in educational matters. Un- . less technical education led to something in the nature of a university course or a diploma it was of no use at all. He did not know any boy or girl who .had left the typewriting classes taught in Wanganui Technical College, and was employed in any office in Wanganui, .who was efficient. APPRECIATION IN CANTERBURY. Christchurch, Last Night. At a meeting of the Education Board complimentary reference was made to the personal methods of the Education Commission. The board referred to the appointments committee for report a request for the names of country schools that could be conveniently consolidated.