SCHOOL READING

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 482, 17 September 1948, Page 20

SCHOOL READING

; POST-PRIMARY BULLETINS. Vols. 1 and I. School Publications Branch, Education Department. \WHEN the new syllabus for postprimary schools was introduced in 1946 some of the suggested reforms could not be carried out because there weregno suitable text-books. These 30 odd bulletins (supplied free to schools as supplementary readers) partly fill this need. Many of them are of a very high standard-some as high as New Zealand can produce--and the text has ‘been enlivened by black and white illustra-

tions by Russell Clark, Mervyn Taylor, Juliet Peter, Yvonne Bendall, and others, as well as by numerous photographs and diagrams. If pupils don’t leave school to-day far better informed about their own country than their parents ever were, it would be necessary to write another bulletin to explain why. Seven pamphlets on New Zealand Writing deal with Samuel Butler, Lady Barker, and the early novel (Professor Tan A. Gordon), poetry and the later novel (E. H. McCormick), Katherine Mansfield (Antony Alpers), and eariy diaries and the short story. All con tain much sound criticism. Indeed, in one or two cases the children get the benefit of infotmation and critical judg~ ments not" yet made available to the general public, which surely is as gratifying as it is surprising. The title Social Studies covers surveys of daity’ farming (H:.C, D. Somerset), hill sheep farming (John Pascoe), mixed farming (B. J. Garnier), coal-mining (J. D. McDonald and J. Watson); factory work (L. S. Hearnshaw), and office work. They are true social studies, since each takes actual examples (in some cases with real names) and describes simply and comprehensively how the people in these various occupations live, their working conditions and rates of pay, how they spend their leisure hours, what their homes and family life are like, and so on. x There are also bulletins on Scientific Institutions in New Zealand, Music (Ernest Jenner), Statistics (H. Henderson), Holding a Meeting (George Fraser), How History is Written and Something About the Pacific (J. C. Beaglehole), and the United Nations (F. H. Corner). Seven pamphlets on Our Living Environment (mainly by A. W. B. Powell) contain some first-class plates of New Zealand birds, insects, and fish, with notes on where they are found and their way of life. Perhaps the best bulletin of the lot, if any choice could be made, is W. J. Scott’s, How Words Work: Hints on Clear Thinking, which points out in some pungent chapters -on . "Emotive Language," "Fact, Opinion and Bias," and "Propaganda," the many pitfalls that await the unwary in discussion, argument, or uncritical newspaper reading. Writing English, by Professor Gordon, is an admirable study of schpol essay-writing reduced to its simplest and. most’ sensible terms. "In every piece of writing there are three things that make the writing what it is.. These are | the writer, the subject, and the reader. A writer writes about something for somebody." It is good to know that this sort of work is being done, and that it will continue, and although it is difficult with semi-official publications to avoid propaganda, that is seldom noticeable. It is a tribute to the editors. of the series that they have shown so much imagination and boldness, and. to the- Department that they have had so much encouragement.