EDUCATION IDEALS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 301, 20 December 1928, Page 9

EDUCATION IDEALS.

"A Low Standard School.*

PLEA FOR THE BRITISH.

CHANGE IN NEW ZEAI*AND.

AMERICAN METHODS COPIED.

(By Telegraph—Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, this day. New Zealand's education policy was the subject of comment by Mr. J. H. Howell (director of the Wellington Technical College), when speaking at the college prize-giving ceremony.

"The year has been a momentous one in the educational world in view of the proposals that are under consideration for the reorganisation of our primary and secondary school system," he said. "These are the result of a report furnished by a committee set up for the purpose of advising the Department regarding the primary school syllabus. But without any instructions in their order of reference, the committee went on to advise regarding the character that post-primary schools should take. The matter was not allowed to be discussed at the Council of Education, and no information has been given except in the form of remarks made recently by the Director of Education in Auckland, where he is reported to have said that the alternatives were: (1) The establishment of separate junior high schools, and (2) the establishment of composite secondary schools with junior departments.

"Abandoning British Methods." "Each of these types is American in origin and nothing similar is to be found in Great Britain or in the Dominions, except to a small extent in Canada. Yet British sentiment is so strong in New Zealand that Mr. Herbert, of the staff of 'Punchy described New Zealanders as 'more British than the British and more loyal than the Crown itself , ; and it is therefore all the more astonishing that, in the sphere of national life which has the greatest influence on the future, viz., that of education, an attempt is being made to break away from British traditions and adopt American ideas. "Yet no officer of the Department has had any first-hand experience whatever of the American composite school or is in a position to compare its results wtih those produced by the system that has developed in Great Britain. Opinion in New Zealand has been mainly influenced by two educationists who paid a flying visit to the Pacific Coast, and by a former primary school headmaster who spent some weeks in visiting schools in America. Surely, the evidence of these visitors is insufficient, however strongly it may be supported by American publications, to justify New Zealand in abandoning British methods.

"The composite school, which it is proposed to adopt, has of late been subject to severe criticism in America itself, and has been well described as an 'all-embracing, low standard school.' It has been argued that the composite school is the type best fitted for a democracy; but those who advance this argument forget that England is as truly a democracy as America, and in the judgment of many familiar with both American and English conditions the British democracy is in reality more a government 'of the people by the people for the people.' "There are by nature great differences between the capacities and the adaptabilities of individual children; and to attempt to make one type of school meet the needs of all during the period of adolescence, when these differences become most marked, is bound to result in a system that is at its best only mediocre, and at its worst a rank failure as an instrument of democracy. Education brings out the natural inequalities in youth, and that system is best which is best adapted to provide for the needs which are thus disclosed." Mr. Howell went on to say that there was strong evidence that the Education Department was prejudiced in favour of the ordinary secondary school, and lacked sympathy with the work of the technical school.