"NOTHING BUT THE BEST"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 518, 27 May 1949, Page 6

"NOTHING BUT THE BEST"

| Widening Stream of School Publications

HE School: Publications Branch of the Educatién Department occupies part of the top floor of an unpretentious Wellington building. But this is no common suite of offices. Something of the brightness of the modern classroom has crept in. The walls are gay with examples of juvenile art (new style) and with originals of the line drawings that will ultimately find their / way into school journal or bulletin, The glossy covers of new publications litter the desks. , The School Publications Branch took over from the old School Journal Branch in 1941-when the production of English and arithmetic text-books for primary schools was first begun, and the introduction of the new syllabus for Social Studies in 1946 creafed a demand for text-books on specifically New Zealand subjects which the Branch was eager to supply. Thereafter there began to trickle forth from a staff now considerably augmented since Journal days the excellent series of post-primary bulletins which combine sound scholarship with a gnowledge of teaching techniques. As well as the Social Studies (Sheep-farming, Dairy-farming, Coalmining, Factory Work) there was a series of New Zealand Writing, which included Samuel Butler, Lady Barker and the Early Novel (Professor Ian Gordon). Poetry and the Later Novel (E. H. McCormick) and Katherine Mansfield (Antony Alpers) and the series Our Living Environment, by A. W. B. Powell. The bulletins aroused a certain amount of critical interest, and some expressed surprise that the children should have access to so much material not yet’ available to the general public. In accordance with its policv of "nothing but the best for our children" the department commissions leading authorities to write the bulletins and hires the best available artistic talent to illustrate them. One of the most delichtful of last vear’s bulletins is Ngaio Marsh’s Play Production, with illustrations by Sam Williams, a good example of the blending of drawings and text. There are some topics that lend themselves less readily to illustration, but even where the material is sterner stuff such as Mary Boyd's China, for senior

forms, the solid mass of text is enlivened by a tail-piece (suitable for shading) at the chapter ends. One ctiticism that could perhaps be made of the earlier bulletins is the flimsiness of the covers, a fault on the way to being remedied now that the paper supply position has improved. Better Towns, produced at the end of last year by the Ministry of Works, breaks away from the conventional 1948 shape and has, moreover, a stiff and glossy cover that should stand up reasonably well to classroom wear and tear. Prospects for this year’s bulletins are good, and much can be expected of the new series of critical studies, How to Listen to a Radio, How to See a Film, How to Use a Library. And throughout all the excitements of the periodic births of new publications the Branch carries on with its original work of producing text-books of a more permanent nature. Particularly interesting are the English text-books which the Department began to produce in 1946 when the new English syllabus was adopted. And besides the text-books and the regular bulletins there are miscellaneous publications such as About Teaching and other career booklets issued to boys and girls ereut to leave school. Perhaps the production that is arousing most interest and enthusiasm in the Department and in the teaching profession’ in general is the newly-designed Education, Education is a magazine for teachers, and appears five times a year. Last year it was a comparatively unobtrusive publication of not much more than Journal size. This year it comes full quarto, the cover is arresting, the paper glossy, the layout liberal, the contents eminently readable. It takes a broad view of education- "education is concerned with every aspect of human endeavour" -so that it spreads its net wide for contributions on town-planning, — libraries, films, books in general. As well it carries and not burdensomely, more technical articles in its own field, plans, for example, for the teaching of Social Studies to Standard Two, or Reading to the middle group, or Art ci the seven-vear-olds. The School Journal, similarly, igs not whet it used to be. In shape alone it remains unaltered, though double the size of its predecessors. Last year the

Journal stood proxy for the primary school bulletins in history and geography, ‘concerning itself with such specific subjects as Gold, Life in the Pa, Pioneer Family, all of them beautifully illustrated with original drawings by well-known black and white artists. But this year the Journal has reverted. to its original function, and: a series of primary bulletins is appearing. The first for this year is M. H. Holcroft’s Communication Through the Newspaper, with illustrations by Russell Clark. A striking cover, stout paper and excellent layout give it an immediate appeal, and the vital everydayness of the subject matter, along with its vivid presentation, make it justly popular with the twelves and thirteens. Most of the primary bulletins are written and illustrated by members of Publications staff, but an attempt is made to encourage the children to contribute, and in Huiarau-A Maorj Village, most of the material has .been submitted by the children themselves. There is no suggestion in the work of the Primary Branch that the critical faculty is not awake at that early age, and that therefore the standard of primary bulletins need not be quite so high as that for post-primary. The bulletin on Birds for Standards Three and Four is written by Dr. R. A. Falla, of the Dominion Museum, and lavishly illustrated with woodcuts by Mervyn Taylor. It is almost a collector’s item. But to an outsider the production and editing of books in English, no matter how well done, seems nothing to the production of the Samoan School Journal, of which only the illustrations are comprehensible to the ordinary New Zealander. And the Department is now contemplating the writing of separate journals for the Cook and Niue Islands. The Publications Branch is also concerned with the building up of picture libraries in primary schools, and this year the Department is issuing to schools 60 large reproductions of photographs of New Zealand life, plus a container for their storage. They will be used primarily as a social studies aid, but their mere presence on the wall should have the effect of making the children familiar with the face of their own country, the people who live in it and the work they do.