PR. LUSH LEY ON HISTORY IN OUR PRIMARY SCHOOLS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXV, Issue 102, 30 April 1894, Page 3

PR. LUSH LEY ON HISTORY IN OUR PRIMARY SCHOOLS.

"What are all our histories and records of notions of past times but God manifesting himjelf; that he hath shaken and tumbled down, and trampled under foot, whatever he hath not planted f—Cromwell.

Just now, the great feature of tbeao Ana* tralasian colonies is confusion of ideas reapectingßightand Wrong.respecting Truth and Error, in all spheres—religious, political, and social.

Apparently, comparatively few know the difference, or that we must all yield homage to eternal laws.

j Indeed, to us Australasians the Russian Siroverb is, at present, very applicable : or " We are dark people, inasmuch as we jinow nob what is sin, nor wherein lies sal* vation."

1b is, therefore, our duty to create such a leal thy intellectual atmosphere as will winder clear the distinction between Right and Wrong, between Truth and Error— {inch an atmosphere as will render it impossible that ignorance, incompetence, and (Iraud can thrive.

To that end, therefore, I now write. For, under such clarified conditions, no jacts will be more apparent than the truth if Bacon's statement, that" Histories make .aien wise," and also wbab Froude points jut in " The Science of History," namely, ihat the first use of history is to teach the workings of the laws of Right and Wrong. Thus, of it, he writes : " Opinions alter, jinnnors change, creeds rise and fall, but the uio--al law is written on the tablets of isternity, etc. ... We learn in it"

'history) "to sympathise with what is great and good ; we learn to hats what is iiiaae."

History, therefore, is a subject which fhoufd receive special attention from our jducation authorities ; more particularly, indeed, in the absence of religious instruction jrom our State schools.

Indeed, it has been said that without Mstory and religion in State education, jnan ia but an animal.

Consequently, it is with amazement that S observe (what seems to me) gross ignorance jof the first use of history, and of our needs, as a democracy, displayed by the inspectors (with tho Inspector*- General presiding) ab the Conference held last February in Wellington, and ib is with oven greater astonishment that I am Sot-cod to infer that what seems to me to be ■An educational fraud is contemplated. For S am compelled to believe that in clear contravention of the 84th section of " The Education Act 1877," and, therefore, in violation of what Legislature clearly intended, Mstory is to be practically ignored as a uubjecb of instruction, although technically it cannot be eliminated except by statute.

'Bub the public shall judge for themselves: and ib is well that, in so judging, Ihoy should remember that we have Mr H, Worthington'a valuable authority for stateing that the Conference had not even the excuse of any overcrowding of the syllabus 'tor its extraordinary resolution of the 6th <»{ February last. •

- Outside of those directly connected with .State primary schools, probably nob one person in a thousand here knows the exact position of history in our education system, ar realises what the immediate, much less Jhe remote, effects would be if what the '^Inspectors propose were carried oub.

It may, therefore, do good to now publish •Information upon the precise situation as it ■s; upon what would be, at least, the.imjiediato result if what) is recommended by Jho inspectors be adopted ; and also upon What should be.

Now, first, by the regulations—which flniier the 100 t- section of the Education Act, 1877, the Governor in Council is empowered to make, " for defining the standards of education which, undertba ■provisions of this Act, may be prescribed %y regulations"—history is not, even at present, a pass subject, although by the 84th aectiqn of the Act It is distinctly provided Jhat it shall be a subjecb of instruction.

It not being a pats .subject, individual proficiency in it doea not advance a pupil lowards obtaining a Standard certificate, ,gs in the case of reading, writing, arithmetic, grammarandcomposition, geography and drawing. Its position is thai; merely of a class jubjact: that is to say, a subject in which si class is examined as a class, and a pupil, On order to obtain a Standard pass, needs snli/ to be present (so far as history is conserved) in clafs during the examination in sine class subjects. Class subjects consist of history, object wessons and elementary science. Bub nob only is history even now, by the regulations, merely a class subject, in phich individual proficiency counts for nothing to the individual, it is also made expressly by the Act an optioned subject; lhab is, "no child shall be compelled to fee present at the teaching of history whose parents or guardians object thereto. Moreover, the regulations on history as & class optional subject only, appear to me So be, even now, ridiculous, For instance, " In history the pupils will nob be required to learn more than about) a dozen dates, or io answer questions on more than twentyfive persons, or events, for any one stanWard); nor (the italics are mine) will they be txpected to trace the remote causes, or even to the proximate causes, of great tvents," etc. (See Regulations, p 7.) So that, even note, history is relegated to 1 position entirely unworthy of ib ; bub «hab is proposed, and what (I grieve to write) can lawfully be accomplished by the ißovarnor-in-Council (fchafi is, practically, fey the Minister of Education for the time being), under the favours conferred by the tOOth section, is still more absurb. For ib ma at the Inspectors' conference resolved "That examination in history as a class (jabjecb be diacontinued, the history books to be used only as supplementary reading books, the language of which, however, Urilll have to be explained."

Thus ib ia proposed that there be no examination in history, even in class, as a distinctive subject, and the only test, in the way of knowledge of the subject, required of '»pupil in reading lessons (see Regulations p. 8) ia tbab the Inspector must be satisfied that "the pupil does understand the passage Bead."

The subjecb of history may, or may nob, happen to form the subjecb of the reading lesson, but if ib happen to be the subjecb, wren then its dietinctiveness is practically merged into that of the pass subiect —reading. (See, for instance, •' The New Zealand Schoolmaster,*' April 16th, 1894, p. 145.) Wonderful to tell! an amendment — 11 That an approved historical reading book bused in Standards 111. to VI., and that &ho Inspector report upon intelligent comjprehenjion of the subjecb matter " was rejected.

The facb that a further proposition (see Conference reporb p. 9) was carried, indicating whab the lessons in history should be, and suggesting that a sew history text book be prepared (although such resolution la apparently somewhat inconsistent with 'the previous resolntion) does not call for »ny modification of whatl have just written because it does not obviate bhe effect of the previous resolution in degrading history to being only an incident, and tbab only a possible incident, in a reading lesson.

Now, in conclusion, a few words''upon *hat should be, in respect of history, in our State primary schools, and, as space restricts me, and as I have somewhat commented Wpon this subjecb in my introductory remarks, I must here limit myself to stating Wad instead of such a regulation as I have Josb quoted (see Regulations p. 7), the philosophy of history requires an exactly contrary/ regulation, viz., " That a 9vpH, at all events in the highest stemlards, will be expected to trace the wmolt cawes and rtmanter the proximate

eautes of gnat events. For ib is of the übmost importance that every studenb should thoroughly realise that history teaches, inseparably from the workings of the laws of Righb and Wrong, that effects have always followed, and must always follow like causes, no that when circumstances are the same, results must be the same.

In view of the facb that the chief education adviser of the Government presided at the Inspectors' Conference, and apparently, did not dissent from the objectionable resolution, ib !b evident that the risk of the practical elimination of the teaching of history from our Stake primary schools is real, notwithstanding that each elimination would be (by rendering history, substantially, not & subject of instruction) a clear evasion, in spirit, if not in letter, of the 84bh section of " The Education Act, 1877." For to so exercise the powers of the Governor-in-Council under the 100 th section never could have been contemplated by our Legislature. Indeed, of the Inspoctor-General, as Inspector General, I have for some long time past been distinctly of opinion that in contradistinction to the wards on the tomb of Pius VI., the following sentences might very appropriately be applied to him :—

In sede parvus, Exsedo minor, In ccelo mlaimus.

Like Thiers regarding Louis Napoleon, ""Jel'aibeaucoupetudiedt pres tt de loin, et e'est un homme absolument nul."

R. Lalshley,