THE EDUCATION QUESTION

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2636, 4 June 1889, Page 2

THE EDUCATION QUESTION

TO THE EDITOR. ,Silt,—Will you kindly allow space for some ideas on the above. In dealing with the subject I take " Education " to mean putting knowledge into minds, that is, the narrow moaning. Our system is not doing much more than this. The young arc being put in tho right road ; but to say that a child who has passed the sixth standard is educated, is ridiculous. That tho system is doing good in some respects goes without dissent. A person's educatiou begins after school life. Whether a Government should or should not supply educational facilities from the primary system to the university course, is a moot point. At any rate the Government should be able to pay for it honestly. The New Zealand Government clearly cannot, and yet we have every scholastic luxury sufficient for a population ten times our own size. The Government has already made a start in reducing expenditure on primary schools, but it has not interfered with that for socalled higher education. In many cases the school teaching seems to people the only direct return from the heavy taxation. It is at the service of the poorest parent, but our hieher educational means, good as they are, are not within the reach of every poor_ man's child. The primary school syllabus is an anomalous one, it is too low and yet too high. Children obtain in many instances a smattering of this or that subject, and leave school with the idea that they know, if not everything, at least a tremendous lot. Owing to the working of the system their minds are crammed with all kinds of memory work, which at examination time is let olf like a cartridge, and after a, lapse of a few months, subjects like geography, history, formal grammar, etc., ara to a great extent forgotten. What is wanted is a more practical syllabus. As some ot your correspondents have pointed out, less memory and more useful knowledge. That our system unfits boys and girls for hard manual work is hardly correct; it certainly may have that tendency. Thefaultlies more with some parents who have an idea that their sons should be bank clerks, and the like, and that their daughters should learn to play the piano, etc. Your correspondent, " Ilarapipi, is very hard on the oth and (ith standards. His argument is that, the extra learning got in these standards warps the minds of children and unfits them for manual labour, but he does not explain how. As a matter of fact, children who stay tw pass the fifth and sixth improve their reading, writing, arithmetic, composition, &c. This improvement "Harapipi " does not desire. Given the same conditions, a sixth standard boy should make a more intelligent ploughman or miner than a fourth standard boy. But people .say that the more you educate people the more and the cleverer criminals will be produced. If this theory be correct, there should be a tremendous number of criminals, male and female, in the world, because at no time has there boen so much learning diffused as at the present. Have the criminals increased proportionately to the spread of knowledge ? The value of knowledge in the two following instances speaks for itself. During the Franco-Prussian war French Generals when on the inarch had often to ask not only the route but even the names of towns in the east of France that they entered. On the other hand each German knew French geography thoroughly, consequently the Germans marched day or night, as it suited them. Again, some sailors were in a boat at sea, and the supply of water ran out. Not knowine the simple process of condensation, five out of seven men died, though there were ample materials for condensing sea water in the boat. The root of the evil lies in the neglect of parents; tho lives they lead. Do parents expect their children to grow up good men and women if they are not trained carefully at home; if they are allowed to spend most of their time any where but at home ? Wo are a young nation, and our system is only a tentative one. As experience is gained, modifications and improvements will be made. Tho Press are doing good work in discussing the subject, and trying to remove from people's minds the silly notion that to " touch the system is to broak it."—Yours truly, R.