The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1919. EDUCATING THE CHILD.

Taranaki Daily News, 2 October 1919, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1919. EDUCATING THE CHILD.

The address given recently by Miss Maitland, of the Training College, Treutham, before .the members of the Wellington Teachers' Institute, is welcome evidence of the intelligent interest that is being taken in the new methods that are being applied to the teaching of the young. Necessarily those members of the teaching profession who take their work seriously, must be ever on the watch for improved means of arousing the attention of the children and holding it in such a way that the process of opening up and expanding the child's receptive and reasoning powers is directed to secure their being gradually developed op a sure foundation. There must inevitably be a certain amount of groping, and more or less experimental work before the right methods are found that will lead to success. Education, as a science, must not be confounded with mere teaching, for though both have a common object in view the teaching may be next to useless, while true education cannot fail to be productive of satisfactory results. It may be admitted that i in the last half century far more progress has been made in discovering and acting upon the right lines of education than during all the preceding centuries, and yet the groping days are not over. Hence, every meritorious contribution to the elucidation of the subject is a distinct step in advance, The great fault in the past has been the striving to reduce educational enterprise to a system, a proceeding that is radically wrong. Miss Maitland rightly insists that the science of education is a pro- J cess of growth, an active living force, which, of necessity, must be continually changing according to the actual experience with children by the experience of others,! and the conditions under Avhich children live. In other words, it is by studying children individually and the circumstances that are daily affecting their lives that a teacher can arrive at the most effective means of dealing with problems as they arrive. The many can teach on the lines generally prescribed, but only the few can educate —that is, guide the child into the right way of unfolding and expanding its intellect, and laying a foundation of future good citizenship. It is so easy to work on wrong lines that the wonder is the average result of our educational system is so satisfactory. The success of an educationist depends, far more than is generally considered, on personality. The very word "education" indicates leading and not driving. Dis : cipline is absolutely essential in the class room and the playground, but those who rule by the doctrine of fear are responsible for many perverted \§as, mtataliy* Childrea.jwe..wast--

ly extremely sensitive as well as imitative, therefore, stern military methods used by the teacher whose class is far too large are bound to have a reflex action on the pupils. On this point Miss Maitland is particularly sound. She says: "In a class of sixty the teacher must have passive obedience; must see that the lesson is attended to by all the class . . . Such teaching helps the child little on the way to his own development. Take away the teacher's control and the child knows nothing of controlling himself —of behaving as a responsible member of society." AH lessons are useless unless the true spirit and right interpretations of methods' are present. ,Again: "To develop a child into an orderly, thinking citizen he must learn self-control, and this can only be done by abundant opportunity for exprcising his own powers . •. . Physical self-control can be taught at any age, but the sooner the better, for habits are quickly formed." That is where the systems of Froebel and Montcssori have accomplished such satisfactory results with very young children. The most soundly educated children are those who have been led to acquire information by asking questions instead of 'having facts and figures fired at them as if they were targets. So long as the classes in the New Zealand schools are too large to permit of individual attention, there will be unsatisfactory results, for each child is a class to himself. This, as Miss Maitland demonstrates, will meiin the adoption of better methods, and will possibly entail greater strain on the teachers, just as it will be a supreme test of their fitness for the task. The main essential to success is the creation of an atmosphere where children want to work and love to work. There is nothing ideal about this aspect of the problem. It is sound, sober common sense. The needs of the future are likely to be so pressing, that everything should be done to raise the scale of intelligence, for thereby alone will the best interests of the Dominion be served.