NOTES NOW AND THEN.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2462, 21 April 1888, Page 2

NOTES NOW AND THEN.

In the February number of the Nineteenth Century, there is a very able article on " The Reign of Pedantry in Girl's Schools," by Miss E. M. Sewall. The writer expresses her conviction that the result of the present system of education in England is that, in seeking to avoid ignorance based on superficiality, the pupils are in danger of falling into the ignorance based on narrowness. The sole object of tha teachers seems to be to enable their pupils to pass certain examinations, and so tliey instruct them in the prescribed Latin and Greek books, in one or more books of Euclid, in one of Shakspeare's plays, in certain defined portions of algebra and higher arithmetic, &c. They teach them, as far as the capacities of the pupils will permit, as much of the prescribed subjects as is absolutely necessary to pass the examination, but no more. They have not time to teach them anything else. The result is that the pupils cannot got a proper grasp of any one subject because they have not had time or opportunity to study it as a whole, but only the small portion required to pass the examination. They have not learned anything about cookery, needlework, or anything else that would be useful to tliotri if they marry and have homes and families to look after, because those subjects are not required to pass the examination, and they have had 110 timo to attend to anything else.

It seems to me that Miss Sewall's remarks are applicable, though perhaps in a leaser degree, to our educational system. There is too muc'i "cr.iiii," too much "exam," but not enough useful knowledge. We are spending hundreds of thousands of pounds in the maintenance of our system, but are we getting value for our money ? Ido not mean to ask if our teachers are earning their pay, because I believe they are doing so, and very often are worth more pay than they receive. But is our system one that will turn our boys and girls into useful and practical men and women ? Of what use will a knowledge of Latin and Greek be to the average girl? Why should she be required to learn algebraand the higher grades in arithmetic, whun, if, as we hope, she will marry and have a home and family to look after, she will need no more arithmetic than is required to check the bills of the grocer and the butcher ? Will a boy bo a better farmer or engineer because he has wriggled through Ovid's Metamorphoses or struggled through Xenophon's Anabasis ? My humble opinion is that we are spending too much money on education and that, when we have paid for it, the education is not the sort we want. Our girls will not go out to ssrvice as their mothers did, but must be teachers or •' shop ladies'' or do some genteel work, for which they will not get the wages of a servant, while they "loaf" 011 their parents for their board. Our boys will not learn to be carpenters. blacksmiths, etc. as their fathers did, but they want to ba solicitors or clerks of some sort, the consequence being that there will soon be more lawyers than clients, and there are now more clerks than there are stools for.

If I had the " running of this show" for a while, I should make some radical changes in our educational system. I would lop off the accomplishments and, teach nothing at any rate in the primary schools, but what was absolutely necessary and useful. I would add a few accomplishments which are not now taught. I would have the girls taught to cook, to sew, to mend and to scrub ; the boys to use a few useful tools of various sorts, to mend their own and their sisters' shoes, to sweep the school and clean the windows. It is simply scandalous, while the country is paying such an enormous sum for the education of its boys and girls, that those boys and girls do not even clean the school in which they get their education, free of cost. The other day an advertisement appeared in the papers for a cleaner for one of the city schools at a salary of £4 per month. Now, why should the country have to pay £4 per month for cleaning the school when there are hundreds of girls and boys being educated in that school, free of cost, who are quite able to do the cleaning, or, if they are not, should learn to do it. I have no doubt there are at least two hundred boys and as many girls at that school who are big enough to take part in the work, so that if ten were told off for each week, that would give only about two weeks' work for each pupil in a year. The ten boys whose week it was should stay after school was dismissed and sweep out. The ten girls should be at school half-an-hour before opening time in the morning and do the dusting. Once a week the boys should clean the windows and the girls scrub the floor. They could enliven the proceedings by singing.

This is the way wc scrub the floor— We scrub the floor, "We scrub the floor ; This is the way wo scrub the floor, And Ret some useful learning:. The quiet suburb of Mount Albert was considerably " shaken tip " by the takiner of the local option vote on Wednesday. There is not, nor has there ever been, a licensed house in the district, and the residents do not wish to have one. At the first blush it would seem as if there should be no difficulty about the matter. The residents of a district are supposed to have complete power, and, at any rate as licensing matters are concerned, it is believed to be true that, as the Yankee said, " this is a free country and everyone does as he jolly well pleases, and if he don't, by thunder, I'll make him." This is, however, a fallacy. In one part of the Mount Albert district there is a house belonging to a wine and spirit merchant, which was built about seven years ago for an hotel, but has never been licensed. In another part of the district is an allotment which a brewer bought some time ago, with the intention of building an hotel on it, as soon as there was a prospect of getting a license for it. Though, as I have already said, the majority of those resident in the district do not wish to have a licensed house in it, the wine and spirit merchant and the brewer put their heads and their purses together and engaged cabs and canvassers to take out non-resident ratepayers to the polling-place for the purpose of defeating the wish of the majority of tha residents. A severe battle was fought, which resulted in the defeat of the wine and spirit merchant and the brewer by twenty votes, so that tho residents have matters their own way for thenext three years. Of course, in this case the spirit of the law has been carried out as well as the letter, but it does seem rather hard that the residents of a district should run the risk of having an hotel opened in their inidst, against their will, through the intervention of interested outsiders. If the local option clause is to be a success I think that provision should be made for allowing none bttt residents to vote. One unusual feature of the case was that some of the most active workers in opposition to the granting of licenses were not teetotallers. Nor is Waitemata.