EDUCATION OF GIRLS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 298, 15 December 1911, Page 4

EDUCATION OF GIRLS.

THE WORK OF THE HOME. (By Telegraph.—Press Assodaticm-) j DCNBDfN. this day. | At the break-up of the Otago Girls* i High School, Miss Marciiant, retiring ( after 16 rears' service, gave some of her i views on the teaching oi domestic science and the relation of free secondary education to the education of girls. Generally she thought the standard of admission too low, and another grave defect was that giris left so quickly. At Wellington, Christchurah, Auckland, and "Dnnedin there were more giria of high school age in private schools than at the free high school This meant that the majority of parents did not -want free education for their gflris. Though fees had been abolished, not enough schools ■were thrown open for girls to be educated, and the girls' parents needed 'money. The girl whose ability was unI doubted ought to be given £ls a vear |to enable her to attend school. "The ! schools "wanted girls "with brains, and not only those wijo had time to take high school courses. Some of these girls of | ability went away to earn about 5/ a I ; ■week- In 30 weeks they would earn £l2 10/. In preference to the present system, then, she would like to see scholarships of £ls given these girls, and the fees maintained in the school for those who could afford to pay. With rpspect to university education, she thought that the appeal to reason and intellect that was dominating the system of primary schools had run mad over domestic science. Business people | had the idea that if they could teach j the girls chemistry of cooking, and the ) physic? of this and the temperature of I ■ something else, they would make good j cooks. They would "make no such thing. j It was not science that was wanted to i turn people into cooks. Some of the I i most uninteUectual people she had seen ; had made good cooks and' the best house-wives. For herself, instead of beginning at the top with all this scientific training, she would begin at the ' bottom. She would hare a little house I like a home, such as the giri3 would live in in after life, with no fanciful kitchen, but with gas stoves fitted up like anything the girls would have in the coarse of their lives. She would send the fifth | standard to home work for three months, day after day, and she would teach them how to do the work there \ quickly, expeditiously and meth-otfrally Next year she would send the sixth standard to the same plane, and bee nning witi the girls of these standards in that way would reach to the number oi" three-fourths of the womanhood of Kew Zealand. (Applause. 1