The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 1907. OUR PRIMARY EDUCATION.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 132, 4 June 1907, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 1907. OUR PRIMARY EDUCATION.

Tor the cause Hurt lacks assistance. For the icrojij-r that needs resistance, Per tlie future in the distance, Aud the good that ice con do.

At the Education Co_ferp_ee now Sitting in London a diseuaiion was yesterday opened a= to the pia~e that ought to be taken by history aiid geography in modem Systems of education. "VYe are not

in a- position to say how the' Conference handled -.his interesting question, but vre are glad of an opportunity to refer brieSv to a subject of such vital importance to the efficiency- of our primary sc-hools. No one who has given any attention to the New Zealand prim-iTy syllabus, or has attempted to discover how much time is spent nowadays in our schools on the subjects that ttsed to b? regarded as the essential features of a sound elementary training Trill be inclined to deny that the course which primary education is now taking with ns is at least open to discussion. The question was raised at last week's meeting of our Education Beard; and to a large extent we agree with the emphatic protest made by Mr. Parr agam?-„ tbe present system. In our opinion not only is the syllabus far too comprehensive and complicated; bnt while our chfldrsn are bang compelled to do a great- deal of wholly unnecessary work., the inevitable result is that valuable subjects are being neglected or ignored. We hold thai our primary school syllabus in its present form is based upon an entirely erroneous conception of educatkm. We have made this statement often enough before, but. considering the extremely vague and inconsistent ideas that appear to prevail among our educational an-thorities, it- seems well -worth repeating. The object of all education is not simply the acquisition of knowledge, but the equipment and training of the mind. Our primary school system ought to be so -framed that our children at the end of their school days are turned out intellingent human beings able to use their faculties to the best advantage in dealing rntellectually or practically with the facts and erfrenmstances of life. To produce this result, our immediate object should be in the first place to provide them -with the kind of elementary knowledge that will aid them most by giving them an intelligent interest in things in general; in the second place, to teach them all subjects that they study in such a way that tie learning of anything else they study later will he relatively easy. To lay the foundations of learning, to rouse latent mental interest, and to teach children how to learn for themselves—these are, it seems to us, the duties of the primary school teacher. And it is chiefly because our existing primary school system does not lend itself to the successful -performance of this indispensable work that we believe the time has come for its radical modification. We brave spoken of the foundations of lear-niag. The days when the "three B."s" were accepted as the sole requisites for prxmary school education have lons gone by. But it is well worth our while to reflect whether in hreaking loose Erorm the olrl mechanical conception of education, we have not drifted too far toward the otter extreme. Fearful of stacking too closely to essentials, we have included in onr syllabus so many superfluities that the truly indispensable features of the system have been almost entirely obscured. Worse than this, the lama and energy needed foT these accessories have nesKssaiiby been diverted from. mo-re. ■fundamental wort-; and, we axe bow

ei *inieiaii.. tfcai we caasisLntly forget "tfee fOßndaaacms. To drop rmetzphox for k±exal speed*—miiaz has become of the teat&aig of history and geography in onr Pnnaay schools to-day? History is almost easrplstely ignored; and geography as EKiged a≤ tax as possihle ta \agns elsmsntary stdaics. Yet its before tiec it is to aisjrore tie claim of iicse tsro saijects to bs cousta-ed as iffiadamental to any raiioaal scheme of primaiy edncataoa- The record of acracnuLlatea. Jncnaa esperiencE as set f ortl. in history is surely one of the most TalnaMe and interesSag sheets that caa be txagh.i and studied. And a inoisiedge of t"hs himn> facts of political and descriptive geography is surely an indispensable requisite fox rousing that intelligent interest in the facts of life which should be the ineTitahle ontcome of gennine and rational school training. It is indeed difficult to overestimate the educational importance of these two despised and neglected subjects trhen io--1-elligentiy taught or learned. Yet Mr. Parr is -well -svithia the mark -when he complains thai history and geograimv are practically excluded irom our schools to make room for "•ne - w-faaHled notions iriiith do no good-"

We have used these subjects merely as an illustration of the defects of our primary schools, and we do xrot propose just now to criticise the whole syllabus in detail. But it is impossible to raise this question without directing attention to ens of the most extraordinary features of the present system—the importance now assumed, by manual and technical training in our primary schools. At the present time, while history and geography as school subjects are almost obsolete, half a day out of five days in the week is given to woodwork, oookery, and other so-called technical subjects. The inclusion of this sort of -spork in the primary school course is due, as we have already indicated, to an. entirely erroneous view of education—ihe notion that

the more mis«_!a.neo"LL= knowledge children get at school, the better they are trained. If people would only remember that the mere piling ui> of mised facts is not education, and that almost all we can espect to do for children at school

is to shoTv tb-em how to learn, the prospects of education here would be hrishter titan they are. As to tVic soecial q-n.es-lion of technical training in primary

schocls, a≤ Mr Parr said last w-eek, the New Zealand Boards have all the "best education—l authorities in the; svorid against them, fcir John Gorsr recently

warned the people of Victoria, that they would oalv do themselves harm if they

"rushc-d into technical instruction before they h_d prepared tie way"'—in other words, if they did not make a sound ! elementary education a preliminary rej quisite icr technical training. In Ger- : many, the acknowledged home of technical education, no suii mistake has been • made. Vv'ritinj; in 1304. iir Winch, a Bri-

j tish school inspector, in his ""Notes on German schools"' points out that in Ger-

many there is co attempt, as in our country, to turn the primary schools ' into elementary science schools. "The

I scien.uii.i. , educ_tin_ in Germany, whicb. is so much praised in comparison with our I own. is not obtained in either primary ;or secondary schools, tmt in technical ; colleges, which receive pupils alter they ! have had a good general education.'" i Elsewhere Mr Winch points out that ' the German primary sciiool system is simpler and more effici-ent than the British, because "the subjects of instruction are fewer, and th-c claisfs are not broken

up to att.end special classes in manual ■ trainine. drawiEe, and housewifery, cookery a_d la-indry." . Surely it is time for our educational rulers to consider such , facts as these instead of persisting with j a system which throws undtie strain on ' teachers and scholars., which mistakes 1 the accumulation of knowledge for edu- | cation, and which sacrifices to supernu- ■ ities many of tie essentials of a sound : primary school training.