ZEAL FOR EDUCATION.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 292, 7 December 1920, Page 8

ZEAL FOR EDUCATION.

FINANCIAL AID IN U.S. REVELATION TO VISITORS. In the couree of visits to many schools and colleges in the United states. Hon. (Joorge Fowlds, ex-Minister of Education, who returned to Auckland on tin , R.M.s. 'Niagara, found many interesting points of comparison with the educational system of New jSealaml. In particular he found extensive development in America of the vocational eide of education.

"The standard of education throughout the country." he said, "is pretty high, but it varies greatly from State to State and from city to city. Generally speaking 1 had a feeling that the vocational and technical side of education was being developed at the expense ol the cultural side, and that is a fault which 1 hope we shall avoid in New Zealand. There is room in our country for a considerable development of education, but there is a possibility of our new-found zeal for science obscuring our appreciation of the old-fashioned 'humanities.' "

Mr. Fowlds found that the high schools in the United States pave n diversified curriculum, some giving instruction similar to our technical schools and colleges, and at the same time emphasising the literary and classical sid»? of school work. Nearly all the Universities he visited were overcrowded and were soon to be -enlarged. The money spent on education, particularly higher education, in some of the cities and States was quite a revelation to the New Zealand vieitor. The number of students proportionally in the high schools and Universities he believed to be mucti higher than in New Zealand.