The Wairarapa Daily. TUESDAY, AUGUST 31, 1886. SIR ROBERT STOUT 0N UNIVERSITIES.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VIII, Issue 2387, 31 August 1886, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. TUESDAY, AUGUST 31, 1886. SIR ROBERT STOUT 0N UNIVERSITIES.

The toil of the session has.not taken so much out of the Premier as might hare been expected, Last week he presided at the graduation ceremony .of the Univertlty of New Zealand and de> livered a lengthy address, which had evidently been carefully prepared. Sir Robert Stout is. anxious to continue the course of instruction given in our primary schools till the capable boy or girl completes his or her culture with a teaching course at a university. He argues that higher culture in literature and'science will raise the status of eren our primary schools, »nd advance the New Zealand type of civilisation. Sir Robert Stout's arguments from his own .standpoint are unanswerable, but from another point of riew they are npen to objection. To carry out the idea of the Minister of Education, which practically ( means a free education from the infant class in a primary school to the lecture room of a university, will cost this colony a still larger sum of money than it is now expending on cdncation—indeed, a larger Bum of money than we have to spare. Again, the idea, if carried out, means a further pressure on the mental powers >of the children of the colony, when already teachers complain that too much is required from them, that too many subjfccta have to be taught, and that it is only by a forcing process, which is repugnant to intelligent teachers and injurious to very many children, that the passes demanded by existing Boards can be secured. . In older countries of the world,' where the idea of the Premier has been carried out, it has been found that a certain degree of mental varnish has been attained at the expense of physical development, Children's bodies are stunted, while their minds are abnormally developed. In a country like New Zealand, where so much depends upon the physical' powers of the rising generation, we

cannot afford a rapid mental culture. It is 'right that we should keep before us the immense advantage of .the higher culture towards which Sir Robert •Stout so earnestly beckons ua, that:-we should hold in reverence the means Whereby the typical New Znklarider iimv be made to rise in the scale of civilisation, but with all this it is prudent to make haste slowly towards the mental goal which the Premier places before us. Let it by alt means be our ultimate object, but let us not display'an undue anxiety to reach'it at the cost of money which we cannot honestly afford, and at the cost of the physical growth and development of I the children of the colony.