The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. MONDAY, MARCH 23, 1908. OUR SCHOOL BOOKS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 71, 23 March 1908, Page 4

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

MONDAY, MARCH 23, 1908. OUR SCHOOL BOOKS.

Tor the emuse that lad* o**tetanoe, For the wrong that need* retietatMM, For the future in the dimtmnca, And the goo* that wo can da.

For some time past educational circles in tie South, have been much, occupied iwith. controversies about the books in use in bur primary schools, There ate two distinct questions at issue; whether the State should supply books free to our school children, and ■whether in any case every school in the colony should use the same sets of books. We are pleased to see that the Auckland Headmasters' Association has committed itself to a definite opinion o» these points, and we hope {Eat the resolutions adopted by this body at its last meeting will secure the amount of public attention that they deserve. Briefly, our headmasters hold that the State "should provide all books and materials used in public schools free of cost to the but that "it is inadvisable to have the same set of reading books in use throughout the Dominion." These matters seriously concern not only the parents of all children attending our public schools, but every intelligent man and woman interested in the success of our educational system; and we are glad to be able to cay that on both these subjects we are entirely in agreement; with the opinion expressed by our local headmasters.

To take first the question of "free" school books. The arguments set forlh in the resolutions we have already published can hardly fail to carry weight. Our boasted' system of education can scarcely be called "free" while the cost of books is borne by the parents; and even in England, which we generally regard as unprogressive, so far as primary education is concerned, all books and materials are given to the children by the schools. The painful duty of inducing parents, and especially poor parents, to spend the money required: for school books ought not to be thrown upon our teachers, who in many cases provide books for the poorer children out of their own pockets. If the books were school property they: could be kept in decent condition, and the children would be saved much of the labour now imposed on them of carrying heavy bags of books to and from school. A special hardship is entailed on parents here through the frequent movements of population from one quarter of the colony to another; and the expenditure in books which seems so serious a matter to them, would .not. press heavily on the State, It is estimated that the total initial cost of three school books and writing material apiece for our 120,000 school children would not be more than £25,000 for the year; and though this would certainly be a substantial addition to our already heavy education bill, it is well worth our while to consider whether the principle of "free" education should not be logically and consistently carried out to the extent of the necessary extra & 10,000 t year. ■

Against these arguments, all that can be said is that the annual average cost of school books is not a sufficiently large item to trouble the ordinary parent to any serious extent. The Christchurch "Press," which has gone to some trouble to collect statistics about this subject, estimates the total cost of school requisites for; a child spending eight years at school—two years in the infant-room, and six in the standards —as follows:—lst year 1/, 2nd year 2/, 3rd year 4/6, 4th year 5/, sth year 7/6, 6th year 8/, 7th year 11/, Bth year 10/—total £2 9/. On this basis, and allowing for the fact that books are constantly handed down from one member of a family to another, and sold at a discount to newcomers, the "average annual cost" of school books to the father of four children is 14/ or 15/ during their school life. This certainly does not seem an excessive amount; but it is only fair to say that these figures have been, vigorously criticised. Mr. Arthur Vile, a member of the Wellington Education Board, argues strongly for "free" bookSj on the ground that he himself pays at least £1 a year on the- average for school material fer each of his i'our children. But, however, the figures are read, It is obvious that tho State could supply tho books much more cheaply than they can be bought bj parents. Purchasing wholesale, and under the mest favourable conditions, the educational authorities could certainly provide all that the children require much more economically than parents can supply books and writing material themselves. And as .Government expenditure under this head would ultimately be recouped from the parents under the guise of taxation, all that is really gained by the present cumbersome and extravagant system is the dubious advantage of compelling parents to realise that they are making a needlessly severe sacrifice in the cause of education.

We are therefore in favour of the provision of "free" school books; but we are just as strongly convinced that absolute uniformity in the selection of school books throughout the Dominion would be a serious mistake. On this point we can find a large amount of expert authority to support us. The North Canterbury Education Board,has received from its inspectors a report on the . proposal for uniform school books, and these experienced educational officials strongly condemn the system. We invite our readers, after considering the arguments advanced by our own headmasters, to take into account the

fact that -where the system has "been tried—e.g., in Queensland arid-Canada —■ "it has had a disheartening effect upon teachers and retarded general progress." Moreover, -such, uniformity debars the teacher from choosing for himself some of the most important tools of his calling, robs him of initiative, and loses sight of one of the essential features of true education—"the paramount importance of imparting variety to the mental fare of children." All these arguments appear to us to tend in the right direction; and they are corroborated by a strong protest from the Otago Education Board's inspectors against any experiment that would "cast in the same mould the minds of all the children in the Dominion." The Otago educationalauthorities have thus determined'to oppose most strenuously any attempt to secure uniformity in school books throughout the colony. The Qtago inspectors are further of the opinion that, uniform or not, "no books published by a State Department are equal in quality and form to those published by private firms"; and we may take this criticism in conjunction with the remark made not long since by the Minister for Education, that it -would be impossible' for Government to print school books here at a price that would compete "with the. -work of British publishers. If once the State took Mr. Vile's advice, and assumed the whole responsibility of supplying books to the schools, there -would be an end to that ceaseless competition among educational publishers which has so far enabled us to get the benefit of the most progressive educational results secured by other countries. But though there may be some margin for controversy as to the production or supply of "free" books by the State, we hold that the case against absolute uniformity in school text-books throughout the Dominion is unanswerable.