TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 10053, 3 June 1898, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

" Happy the nation which A has no history," may be Wordsworth true enough if the phrase Fete. is taken as applying to but one branch of history—that which involves the record of wars and insurrections, the fall of dynasties, and the struggles of pretenders to the throne. But all history is not taken up by matters of this sort. There is, for instance, the history of literature, which in the case of England is rich in names of world-wide and enduring fame. Hitherto, however, with the exception of Shakespeare and Burns, and, in a lesser degree, Scott, few of the men who bear these names can be said to have attained the rank of national heroes, and in some cases bare remembrance and recognition is their meed. It is gratifying, therefore, to notice that in the case of a poet who is too little read nowadays, William Wordsworth, there has lately been inaugurated at Cockermouth, in Cumberland, a movement which, if it serves no other purpose, will at least once a year remind his. native town that it was the birthplace of the poet. On Easter Tuesday the children of the Board schools, headed by a band, marched to the Wordsworth fountain in the public park and deposited there bunches of daffodils in honour of the poet and of his sister Dorothy. They then sang a song to the poet's memory, which had been especially written by Canon Rawnsley, and were addressed by that gentleman, the Provost of Eton, and others. The speeches were short and. simple, and dwelt on the importance of encouraging such local feeling and pride as tlje fete exemplified. Previous to this the children had competed for prizes given for the best recitations of poems from Wordsworth's writings. The use of daffodils for deckng the Wordsworth memorial was particularly appropriate, for of all the English poets ..Wordsworth has best described, in a * well known passage, the beauty of this charming wildflower. The people of Cockermouth have decided that the festival shall be repeated every year, and no doubt the example is one which in time will be followed in other places. There is hardly a town in the Old Country in which a similar gathering could not be held for the purpose of honouring some famous Englishman. Possibly our children's children may do the same for some New Zealander who has achieved a more than local fame and added his name; to the roll of the worthies of the Empire.

To-day the Australian The people will decide the Federation destiny of Australia, at Vote. least for years to come. We in New Zealand have no part in the proposed Federation, but it has been impossible to remain entirely indifferent to the great question which is so soon to be decided. For one thing, no reader of the Australian papers during the last two or three months could help having- the subject forcibly impressed upon him. The tremendous efforts whioh have been made by the opponents of the Federation Bill to convince the electors of the fearful results which would follow its passage, have been met by equally long and strong arguments by its supporters in favour of it. Few questions that one can remember, except that of Home Rule in the English papers, have been discussed wita so much vigour and determination as this question of Federation. It is difficult "atf thi_ distance to accurately gauge the comparative strength of the two parties; in fact we are not at all sure that Australians are in any better position than ourselves on this point; bu. there can be no doubt, we think, that if the vote had been taken at the beginning of the campaign, Federation would have been carried, while it is almost equally certain that the anti-federationists have gained strength as the fight proceeded. So much has been made in New South Wales of the alleged greater cost which Federation would impose upon the taxpayer, and there has been such juggling with fi_-urea to prove and to deny this, that it is small wonder that timid people have taken alarm, and have decided to let matters stand as they are rather than risk increased expense of living. Whether the accessions to the ranks of the antifederationists have been great enough to turn the scale in their favour remain s to be seen. Undoubtedly the hero of the campaign, whichever way the vote goes, is Mr Edmund Barton, of New South Wales, who by his eloquence and energy has done more than any other man in Australia to weld the disconnected colonies into a united nation. The campaign has presented some remarkable features, but we aro not sure

that the spectacle of the".Bulletin" fighting for federation on the side of the Conservative Melbourne "Argus" and "Sydney Morning Herald" and against the Liberal "Age" and Sydney "Daily Telegraph," is not in its way one of its most striking incidents. After forty years of con- . A tinuous service the Rev. T. Pioneer W. Sbarpe, C.8., who is of said to be the only olerical Education. 08. in the Empire, has just retired from the position of Inspector of Schools in the English Education Department. Forty years of work in that capacity have left him with many recollections, notibly oE what may be called the early days of education in England. He served his apprenticeship as an assistant school inspector in Yorkshire in 1857. He was then one of three who did all the inspecting in Yorkshire, now that county requires thirty-four, and some of those are overworked. In 1857 there were between 3000 and 4000 teachers in the whole of England and Scotland, now there are 60,000. In those times only three-quarters of the children who ought to have gone to school did so, and half of them went to utterly inefficient little private schools, concerning one of which Mr Shai\._ says that it was kept by old widow of seventy, .whose total income, including parish relief, was only 3j 9.1 a week. The three R's were deemed quite sufficient then, plus some training in labour. "To provide this," Mr Sharpe is reported to have said, " schools of industry, fouuded on no scientific system whatever, were started; they soon died out. I remember that at one of these schools the headmaster, whilst producing his account books, in which he asked for a Government grant, showed mc with great pride a large turnip as the sole produce of the year.'' When Mr Sharpo first entered its service the Education Daparfcmont's work ran on three lines, building schools, filling them, and creating teachers. Of these the first is nearly completed, and the country is covered with a network of schools. The attendance is still so irregular that 10 per cent of the children get little benefit from their schooling. Last year in London alone 60,000 parents I were looked up and made to send their children to school, and in only twelve! cases in which parents had been summoned for neglecting to do this were the summonses dismissed. Thirdly, a great improvement is still needed in the quality of the teachers, whose own education is often extremely limited. Old though Mr Sharpe is, his Teachers views on teachers and teachand ing are modern enough to Teaching, please the most advanced. The Department, we learn, is getting rid of the notion that the whole end and aim of the teachers' lives is to communicate information to, and not to train, the children under their charge. But there are still great hindrances to progress and efficiency. " The size of the classes—sixty to seventy—precludes any individual knowledge of the pupils, and so backward, dull, shy, superficial children are neglected chiefly because their composition, whioh is the great test of intelligence, cannot be properly revised." Mr Sharpe recognises to the full the disadvantages of the Board school system, which he declares is too much that of mere class teaching, where the master is supreme. The scholars themselves have no responsibility cast upon them, and the bigger classes are not self-reliant enough. "They are over-taught, everything is over-explained, nothing is left to their imagination, nothing for them to worry out for themselves. In short, they do not learn the most important lesson of all—how to think. Still, taken as a whole, the moral habits formed in these schools are very valuable to them in after life—punctuality, truthfulness, obedience, cleanliness." He has been suggesting to teachers the " creation of a | * Vlth Form ' spirit of self-reliance and of that keen schoolboy honour which is the glory of our great public schools, but it is very difficult to get any very definite comprehension of it into the minds of either boys or teachers. The elder boyH should be left alone more, trusted more; they should have greater priyiieges, and shoni'l read more for themselves." -_■.-•___,_ verdict on the Board schools is rather disappointing. Considering the early age at which they leave school tbe children, he thought, had formed good habits of discipline and respect for others, " but they have not acquired the independent power of thinking- or acting for themselves, which are the first requisites of a good citizen." Unfortunately this verdict would also sum up the deficiencies of public school education in New Zealand. Our system is more wooden than even the English system, and, except in a few cases, it is handled by the teachers in a style which emphasises its inelasticity. There are teachers who, seeking for something better than a high percentage of passes, try to train the minds of their scholars, but these are all too few, As a rule we teach, but we do not educate.