POST-PRIMARY SCHOOLS.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20412, 5 December 1931, Page 10

POST-PRIMARY SCHOOLS.

PRESENT POSITION. PROBLEMS AND ANOMALIES UNIVERSITY ENTRANCE STANDARDS. (UPICIALLT WJUTTIN ">* THE PRrSS.) [By the Principal op thk Sacked Heaut Girls' College.] Catholic secondary schools are now to be found, in every town of considerable size throughout the Dominion. Their main purpose is to develop and extend the religious (instruction of the primary schools, which, owing to the immaturity of the pupils, has necessarily to be confined'during the first stage to the elementary essentials. Moreover, parents in country places, whifch are some distance from a Catholic primary school, often make a special effort' to send their children either as hoarders or by daily train and 'bus to a Catholic secondavv school.' It happens for this reason, as well as tor others, that our schools cart in no way consider themselves in the matter of general curricula as independent of the work done in the other primary and secondary schools of the Dominion.' For instance, there has been established for some years now a highly successful Montessori department in connexion with, our College in Ferry road; hut owing to new entrants* in the upper standards it generally happens that ot those presenting themselves lor the sixth standard test, not more than -o per cent, h'ave actually c-ome through all the classes of the school, and the percentage in the secondary classes 13 still smaller. Moreover, owing to general exigencies, our primary schools, except in the matter of religious instruction 1 , follow prcttv closely the curriculum of the State schools, hence the problems facing'onr secondary schools are almost identical with those of other secondary schools.

Position of Secondary Schools. It' is now admitted the secondary schools,, wedged in between'the primary schools on the one hand and the liniyersitv on tin? other, tret all the crushing. In fact. t)io position of' the,secondary schools in! all parts of the English speaking - world is at present seriously exercising the minds of our greatest educationalists. Preparatory Work of the Primary Schools. Tiie work done in the .primary schools, especially, since tin.- introduction o# the "New Syllabus," ts on the whole satisfactory,. Such essentia) subjects as spelling and arithmetic are, however, generally taught by antiquated methods that absorb far too much' of tire pupils' time, and do not make for success. It, would be a'happy day for schools of all grades if the teaching of these and similar subjects could be carried out bv the system inaugurated by Miss C. Mason, which is now making such headway in England. and which was so deservedly eulogised by his Fxcellency the GovernorGeneral recently. Unsuitable Text Books. Even in the matter of text' books this system would eventually prove cheap-er-than that, at present in .vogue in New Zealand. Imagine the deadening effect of a geography book for a child of nine or ten in Standard W.., whieli—to give only one instance — could say nothing more of a visit to Colombo than that "'While our ship is coaling we can hire a rickshaw boy to show us'the places of interest." but without the description of a single one being given. The human mind. Whether dull or Bright, cannot grow and thrive on bare, facts. Its progress depends above all else on being supplied with vivifying idea's: and we are no.:more .-justified in starving our children's minds than we should be in starving their bodies. Text books, ■whether for primary or secondary schools, which confine themselves to the barren generalities just mentioned cannot but have, a dearlqnihg effept on the minds of those .compelled to use them. This' is the cause, almost to a tragic

degree, why in spite of all tho efforts and expenditure pn education, so many of our young people do not love reading. It is above all'else to its insistence' on the use of good thought-stir-ring 1)0 olf.s —books written by those who have seen and heard and felt what they describe —even if the books used are few in number, that the P.N.E.TI. system established bv Miss Mason owes its immense superiority. At the recent sixth standard examination at our school a little English girl of eleven, trained by this system so execelled in English, spelling, and other subjects that she had no difficulty in obtaining a proficiency certificate. In a young country such as New Zealand, where so much hew ground has to bo broken up we cannot vet hope to have, as in England, many cultured peoplo of Jeisure, who embody in the books they put together their own life's study of the topics dt which they treat. By all means let us devise a method of importing English books as cheaply as possible, but at the present time it would be more than a disaster to confine our school children to text books produced locally. Space will not allow me to say more concerning the great 1 advantages that would accrue to secondary schools in general if pupils came to them from the primary schools furnished with the liberal education made possible even for very young children by Miss Mason's system. I must, however, repeat again that the adoption of such a system ; s much more a matter of method than 'if money, and that the cost would be. if anything, less than at present. The Secondary School Problem. For some thirty years now the postprimary schools of the Dominion have been* thrown open for freo secondary education, and yet, in spite of the diversity of talent and aims of the school generations that have succeeded one another in this long span of years tb<* position in regard to the curriculum, the one thing that docs matter to the pupils, is for all practical purposes exactly what it was before any momentous change took place, namely dominate) through and through byi the public service and University entrance examinations. To realise what this means to the children concerned we must remember that the primary school course has been so speoded up, for the benefit of scholarship holders that young people now leave the fostering care of the primary school two and even three years sooner than they did a generation or so ago. Hence when these young, people are deprived of further suitablo. schooling they are not getting oven the minimum that was the common lot of all in the supposedly less progressive days when their parents filled the school benches. But ife is not only in Xew Zealand that; the secondary school problem lias become acute, as the following statement, recently'made by DrMacGillivray, of the Glasgow Univorsi't.v, testifies: "The task of the old secondary,, school was mainly selective, the choosing of £tfi elite to go forward to the the professions,. and the higher reaches of the Civil services But within the ppstj,-twenty years changes of the greatest significance ' :have' taken place both in school and university, and with these changes has come ,:i new conception of the place of education in the national life._ The conception to-day is . that it is the duty of the ■ secondary sclvool to give the fullest opportunity to the youth of the. nation to develop according, to their * eapneities, tlieir* interests, and theu' willingness to make tho necessary sacrifice and effort.''

Rigidity of Curriculum. , A fairlv exhaustive enquiry into tlio matter leads nie to believe that it is not altogether because of economic pressure that so many bo.vs and girls 'who commence at pbst-primarv schools remain there only a short time. The trouble comes rather from the deficiencies of the courses offered at these together with—ns in the primary schools—tho unattrnetiveness and deficiency of many of' the test books used. We continually come across new pupils in the lower forms of tho secondary school who ore"' dull and .listless while they are confined to examination text books, but became new people when the subject, say his-' lory or geography, is treated from a book-with life in it. Sir William Orpen's Outline_ of Art, . for instance, with its alluring descriptions of great, masterpieces and inspiring stovies' of the struggles and aims of their authors, fascinates young people of every calibre and taste. Even from a patriotic , point of view such lessons are certainly more efficacious than are drearv details regarding the grqwth of constitutions an,(l parliaments to boys and- girls whose immaturity and lack of experience make it impossible",tor them to grasp the workings of even the auguvt Assembly ruling their own Dominion. To take but- one other instance of the inadequacy of our secondary school- history teaching, stereotyped as it k by examination syllabuses: would Tt not be more profitable for our girls to hear a great deal more than «-they do of the great women, mothers, and wives of history, whose name is legion? ttather than bottles and \alliances it. would surely be better lor them to know how .Napoleon's mpther so managed to bring up her wayward son that to her at least he paid orofound respect unfil the end of his davs. Attesting Individual Progress. While our secondary schools have no other means—other, than the two altogether unsatisfactory entrance examinations mentioned above—of attesting to the public the progress made by their 4 pupils, justice cannot, and will not, be done to tlie diversity of talent represented in the present day post-primary school.' Moreover, a system such as the present, which extorts from school children over five thousand guineas a year for failure in the only public examinations afforded them (see Hecess Committee's Report, page 100) stands condemned, surely, of a grave moral injustice. Sir Isaac Pitman's Company make a fortune out of\examination fees, but as their tests give reasonable hope of 6iiceess if the allotted work is done, they render a valuable service to the community. This is one of the manv cogent reasons why technical colleges and commercial courses now attract. a larger proportion of pupils than do othe'i- secondary ■school'courses.' • " An ideal solution would : be to (a) .prevail upon the University authorities to confine their entrance tests to botui lide entrants to the University; (b) gi'ant secondary schools the power to issue annual progress certificates, the work of the 'inspectorate being to tirade these schools, not according to the yiircoss or failure of individual pupils, bnl, according to their excellence of teaching and honesty in allotting morit marks. This is "in reality the procedure that has proved so, satisfactory in the case of-our University' claat.es, tho professors being more concerned with maintaining the standard of their work than in passing individual students Moreover, we have it on Rood authority that the certifi-

cafe system has already produced excellent results in the secondary schools of Germany, and. in any ease, the re-' suits could not be more unsatisfactory than they are ot present for all except a few academically-minded pupils., Lowering of Secondary School Leaving Age. The serious injury inflicted on both the secondary schools and the University bv the too early stage at which the higher leaving certificate is awarded bv tiie Education Department could not 'be better demonstrated than has been done by Professor G. E. Thompson. I-itt.D., of the Otago University, in h's evidence before the Rotess Committee. (See Report of Ilecess Committee, page 110.)