"PRINT-WRITING."

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18184, 22 September 1924, Page 10

"PRINT-WRITING."

MINISTERIAL STATEMENT. Mr P. Bartram (Grey Lynn) asked the Minister of Education, in the House of Representatives, whether he would give the House reasons for the discontinuance of the teaching of the art of writing and the substituting of that of printing in the public schools of tho Dominion. The Hon. Mr Parr replied: The honourable member is under some misapprehension. The art of writing has not been discontinued in the public schools of tho Dominion through the substitution of printing. It is true that in a number of schools a new style of writing, called print-writing, has been adopted It is claimed for print-writ-ing that it is much more quickly learnt, is far more legible, and can be written at higher speed. As a rule it results, in a year or two after leaving school, in the adoption of a more or less current stvle of writing which still retains the advantage;} of the print-writing. During recent years the new system of writing has been very widely adopted in Great Britain, and it appears to be growing in favour. I have seen a considerable number of specimens of the new style of writing, and I must say that, ago for age, the pupils under the new system are far better writers than those who have continued wifJh the older form of script-writing At the recent Senior Injectors' Conference in Wellington I questioned the conference on this subject and the conference was unanimous that the system of print-writing was worthy of a trial m the public schools, and that teachers should be free to adopt it.