A GIRL'S EDUCATION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 21, 25 January 1934, Page 15

A GIRL'S EDUCATION.

MODERN CURRICULUM. "It is becoming a very pressing matter for the board of education to seek to arrive at a considered view of what ought to be taught to the ordinary boy and the ordinary girl whose education is going to stop short at 16, or at latest, 18," states Dr. Cyril Norwood, headmaster of Harrow, in an article on what he terms the best education for "Everygirl." "Let us assume," he writes, "that a school course is a preparation for life, and not for an examination; what ought her education to be? In the first place, it should aim at the production of health, strength and activity of the highest degree possible. Girls' schools are already, 1 think, in front of boys' schools in this respect, but it is not in every school course as fundamental as it ought to be. Next, the curriculum should be built on English subjects as its main foundation; the mother tongue, how to speak it, write it, use it; geography, dealt with in the modern way, which gives reasons as well as facts; and history which moves on from the stories of the past to concentrate on thc_ world of the present, how and why it has

grown to be what it is. On this foundation should be built lessons in simple citizenship. Third, science, so long as it is alive. Science entered the curriculum about 1870 and by IDOO the pedants had made it the deadest subject of the lot. Let Everygirl try to learn something of biology and hygiene, with the merest elements of physics and chemistry; H is not her business to be a potential B.Sc. Finally, let her do her best at the aesthetic and practical subjects. It will be her concern to give beauty to tlie home, teach her to a right judgment of things musical and artistic. It will be her concern to give order to the home; let her have her chance of learning something of the many mysteries of housecraft. If she likes French, let her learn it; if she has no lingiiistic gift, let her leave it out. If she is good at algebra and geometry (and she probably isn't), let her try; but so long as she can do a little arithmetic accurately, what more does she want?"