CO-ORDINATION

Taranaki Daily News, 23 August 1919, Page 11

CO-ORDINATION

(Contributed by the Teachers' Institute.) Among the many features of our education system that are coming under the searchlight of criticism there js probably none that wili better repay scrutiny than the lack of connection between the various stages of school life. Beginning at the bottom and working upwards from the free kindergartens conducted by subvoluntary efforts in the larger towns, to the university which should crown the edifice of public education, the observer is at all stages made aware of a lack of that long-sighted policy that should be the directing motive of the. whole gcheme. The free kindergartens as yet perform a very small and independent function; but they are symptomatic of developments that will mature as time goes on. At present they deal with children under five years of age; and fram them the children paBS into the preparatory departments of the primary schpol. They experience in the change SQinetliing in the nature of a resolution; for though they are still of kindergarten age the schools they enter, in post cases, are not adapted in the best manner for carrying on the work that hj»» been begun. Floor-space, equipment, and the. size of classes combine to render this, impossible. Bad as the break is between the kindergarten and the primary school, that between the primary and the postprimary, whether secondary or technical, 18 very much worse: This does not apply with such force in the District High Schools of the smaller towns, for in these there is an opportunity for basing the work of the secondary department on that of the primary department through which the pupils have passed. But in the larger towns, where tha pupils pass from the sixth standard to the secondary or technical school, the transition is comparable to tha* of an emigrant going into a foreign country, The" technical schools are a new and im- j mature native growth, and may be expected/in due time to evolve a style and atmosphere suited to the functions they will be called on to perform. The sect ondary schools, on the other hand, are to all practical intents an exotic ira» They are modelled, for the inost pari, on we English public school, so called, and pay less regard to the function they should serve in this young country thaji to the.maintenance of the forms and traditions of the class inatitu* tions of the Old Land. This is a feature ttiat needs radical alteration without Joss of tjine, and for two main reasons. The first of these is that in a democratic community such as ours class distinct tions should be discountenanced rather than, fostered. Our secondary schools are not, and arc not intended to be, class schools, and the forms and traditions that have been borrowed from the class institutions of the Old Land should giveplfcce to others more in conformity with the functions our schools have to fulfil among our own people. The schools are almost wholly supported by public funds and should be made to serve the neadu of the whole of the people, not any section of them. The second reason is inherent in the nature of education itself. Education is, or ought to he, a progress, a process of growth, proceeding along a path regujarjy graded from kindergarten to university—not a path where each is compelled to" take the tame steps in the same time, but where each can ffnd means of doing the beet he has it In him to do, and we can do it effectively because of the sure preparation that has been made for the doing in the •earlier stages. This is where the lack of a co-ordinating directing power is most severely felt. Speaking generally, the secondary schools have no cognislanee of the wOrk that has been done in the primjwy schools. They have their own cut-jwid-dried programme, which has no relation to what has gone before, anfl, as far as can be seen, no forward vision of what is to come after, except in respect of the small proportion of students 'whose objective is matriculation and the 'uniyetfsity. The result is that a very large proportion of those who pasß up from the primary schools find their pathway- intersected by a chasm which is too wide for them to jump- Those who cannot take the jump .turn aside from the quest and join the ranks of those whose higher education has been neglected. It i» a very familiar phrase, this of a "neglected education," and few people stop to consider all that it implies. It implies the waste of much fine material, both of brain and character, that might have been turned to account to the great profit of the community and the individual. It means that capacities for life and work have become atrophied for lack of cultivation. It means the deelining into second or third rate citizenship of those who might have been firstrate. _ It means that the power of the ■ individual to contribute to the common good, has been allowed to fade awar, or at the least has not been given an opportnnitv to srrow. That is the kind of 'loss that the nation and its citizens are .suffering because of the want of some authority that can give unity and coordination to the operations of the different parts of our educational machine.