The Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR P.M. Resurrexi. MONDAY, MAY 16, 1881.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3862, 16 May 1881, Page 2

The Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR P.M. Resurrexi. MONDAY, MAY 16, 1881.

The. State tchool system af^New Zealand is rery comprehensive. ■'■ We educate our children in the " three 8.5," teach them singing and give them lessons in drawing, but it is a thousand pitiestU&£ ;nb attempt is made to teach the aitM Speaking. The teaching of elocotion entered into tfie work of the preceptors of past generations of EngKshuieno£r oflatig y^rs i^fhas been excluded from the timetables of the majority of gehbolg,' both iv Britain and the colobieg, and the rnatural ; consequence is, that oratory has declined. Where are the men to fill the places of the mifehiy speakers of the end of flto IStK■Jjfentaftr, I#hiieTßM>the men to step into the Demonthenean shoes of Gladstone, Bright, and, tp bring us nearer home, Sir George Grey. In his "Treatise on' Liberal "Education," J) r Knox rery pertinently remarks :— " When a boy is' so far advanced' in the'classios as to be able to afford time -and/attention to other objects, he should enter on the arl of speaking. Once a week, or oftener, he should rehearse, in the hearing of all the boys in ■ the school, seated as auditors, some celebrated passage from Demos, thenes, Plato, Homer, Cicero, Livy, Virgil, Milton, Shakespeare, Pope, or Addison. Thestr original writers, or others ot the same- class, arc? fully sufficieul to form the., taste, as. well as to

urnish matter for the practice of elocuion in all its varieties; and it may be >bser?ed that the learning by heart the nost beautiful passages of the finest minors is a great collateral advantage itteudingthe study of the art of speaking." is boys acquire their love of literature from the quality of their adolecsental tuition, so they become good fluent speakers from exercising their dormant abilities m that direction at school. Surely it is not *n unworthy study for out youth to obtain dear, emphatic utterance. The neglect of education in tbi« directioni« tfie more to fie*wtffidered at when we take into consideration that modern occupation* reqnire the gift of eloquence more than any other Age. Qur lawyer* stutter in a roundabout manner through a weary lair point, our,clergy men are wanting in clear expression; and our public ipeakers on : ercry platform— with; few >x|eptions^re below medio crity. ; Good teachers of elocution would be of more practical service to young New Zealand than all the drawing, dancing, singing, and classical masters in the world. _