HOMEWORK NEEDED

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 295, 14 December 1938, Page 15

HOMEWORK NEEDED

DIRECTOR'S VIEWS.

DANGEROUS TENDENCIES.

EDUCATION STANDARD LOWER

"I disagree vehemently with those who advocate the abolition of homework, even in the secondary schools," said the Rev. Bro Borgia, director of Sacred Heart College, when addressing a larjre attendance at the prize-giving ceremony in the concert chamber of the Town Hall last

evening. Bro. Borjria said that homework was not only valuable and necessary to complete the work done in class, but it was still more necessary in order to develop habits of self-discipline and self-reliance. "I think we should be on our guard against the danger of excess in modern educational tendencies," he said. "One hears a great deal to-day about the freedom of the child, about the desirability of making its young life as pleasant as possible, and I suppose it is the same philosophy behind the conviction that the all-important political objective of to-day is the material comfort of the people.

"Unfortunately, there is not the same stress laid as of old on the necessity of discipline for young people, on the perennial value of such old-fashioned virtues as obedience, reverence, piety, modesty, diligence and perseverance. And yet, what will save the democracies of the world to-day if not the building up of nations of virile men? The sooner the extravagances of the new education are jettisoned the better. We have to sink our pride and take a leaf out of the book of the totalitarian States. We must aim at what they are rapidly accomplishing—at mobilising the energies of our |>eople, teaching and inspiring them to be ready to l>ear cheerfully the greatest privations for the common good; at building up a sinewed, loyal, disciplined youth, confident and enthusiastic, a youth of lofty ideals, of strong moral fibre, a youth permeated with a passionate desire for the reign of justice and truth."

It had been stated recently that present-day students should be more capable than those who had gone before them, since they were getting better opportunities educationally, Bro. Borgia continued. He did not think teachers ill secondary schools would agree with that statement. The progress of students did not depend so much on the educational opportunities they had, as on their capacity to take advantage of those opportunities. "My own impression is that, owing to the multifarious distractions and attractions of modern life, the students of to-day, compared with their predecessors, have inferior powers of concentration," the speaker concluded. "Another thing that is liable to make the task of secondary teachers increasingly difficult is the lack of solid educational foundations in the children coming up from the primary schools.

"I notice there are signs lately that the authorities are waking up to the fact that the practice begun last year of issuing a pass certificate to every child that had done one year's work in Standard VI., would- eventually prove disastrous. If the children entering the secondary schools are not fit to take up secondary work seriously, it may be necessary to introduce a preparatory form before Form 111. I do not for a moment wish to refleet»on the conscientiousness or efficiency of the primary teachers, but there seems to be a growing tendency to minimise the importance of the essential subject* in the primary curriculum."