PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN ENGLAND.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2319, 21 May 1887, Page 1 (Supplement)

PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN ENGLAND.

Few important changes, says an English paper, have been introduced into the Education Code for 1887. From this fact it might .be inferred that onr system of elementary education is .very near perfection, but unfortunately that would be an extremely rash conclusion. Instead of being perfection, the whole system stands in urgent need of thorough investigation. The founders of our primary schools had the best intentions, but they did not take sufficient care that the children should receive a training that would be of real service to them in Inter life. The pupils in these schools learn three R's ; their memories are overloaded with masses of disconnected facts ; ami the smartest of them acquire remarkable skill in satisfying the demands of examiners. But how .many of them are taught to observe, to classify, to excerise the imagination and reason? The vast majority, on leaving school, are incapable of reading a serious book intelligently and with interest. They know nothing about the facts and laws of Nature, and when they hesnu to learn a trade or industry they do Hot feci that there is the slightest relation buUv t '.i'.n their new employment and the work they did for the schoolmaster. All this is very unsatisfactory, and it must be quickly changed if England as a nation is to keep abreast of the general intellectual movement of the nge. Two things are r-.bsulutely necessary real and enduring success in popular education. In the first place the teachers must themselves be thoroughly educated men and women ; and, in the second place, they must not be hampered by a set of rigid, arbitrary rules. If teachers are fit for their work, they should be allowed, ns far as possible, to adopt the methods which accord with their own judgment and experience.