LACK OF SYSTEM IN NEW ZEALAND EDUCATION.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20421, 16 December 1931, Page 16

LACK OF SYSTEM IN NEW ZEALAND EDUCATION.

TO TSI JCDITOB or TBW FKKS4 Sir,—Our early pioneers generally commenced a homestead by greeting a two-roomed shanty; then as the family increased they would add. first one "lean-to" and then another, until eventually, if times proved sufficiently prosperous, the whole ramshackle put-to would be discarded and a more elegant abode erected with pride of place in front of it. The New Zealand "education system," not being a progressive money-making concern, has not been able to pull itself out of its first patch-work, with the result that whereas all the rest of the world has been busy putting its educational house in order, New Zealand cannot claim at this late day to have either "education" or "system." Our first State schools were modelled on the "factory" schools which were established in England as a place of detention for the numerous little waifs, who after 1870 were not allowed to work in the factories or mines. Only two subjects were taught in these schools, ''sumsJ * and ''spelling'' (see "Piers Plowman Histories" Junior Book V., Chapter, xxv.). Dickens, had he survived so long, would have loved to pour all the vials of his castigating wrath on the mind-deadening enormity of making little children sit for hours on rigid benches, in gloomy barracks, progressing from two-letter words, "on, ox, up," to three letters, "cat, Tat, mat," Words of five or six letters finishing their education in "reading." The shouting to the ceiling of "tables" and the doing of "sums" formed the chief alternation in this altogether dreary and thoroughly industrialised regime, in comparison with which Oliver Twist's message-running and star-light jßxpeditions were real joys. If all these things were now past history one would willingly leave them alone; but, alas, although English schools have been improved out of all recognition, our New Zealand schools' system, except for a few frills here and there, is still essentially the system brought from England some fifty years ago; and the following indictment fjrom the pen of . the Director of 4* Mt Jg, Hons#

hold, M.A., is still to a certain extent truo of us:

"The early English primary school was a bookless school, a cheap school of huge classes, badly housed; badly equipped; and a new aid quite unnatural technique of teaching had to be devised to meet the unnatural conditions. The teachers, themselves had to be the source of all the information which regimented masses of children were huddled together in front of them to obtain. The teachers talked well if they were able teachers (and many were and are most able); they.led the children cleverly to make deductions as inevitable as Euclid's; they drew up skilful summaries on the blackboard, and then questioned brilliantly in perfect sequence to get back from their scholars what they had given. But all the time it was they who ' were doing the real work. The children did very little. Jn place of the priceless gold of knowledge won b> thought and made their own, a harassed and unhappy teacher foisted upon them the pitiful dross of information. forced, rammed at high pressure, in machine-made chunks by class-teaching upon the collective memory, where it withered unassitnilated, or perished leaving no mark behind." Mr Household, who is an enthusiastic admirer of the system established by Miss C. Mason, has induced some three hundred of the four hundred and sixteen schools under his jurisdiction to take up completely the Charlotte Mason plan, while many even of the one hundred. and sixteen have been profoundly influenced by the. system. We cease to wonder at this Success when he goes on to tell us the seven-year-olds just up from the infants read "Midsummer Night's Dream" at sight; the six-year-olds want a new book every week and sometimes oftener; children of eight read habitually books listed by the publishers for children of 12 or 13; Shakespeare is an everyday treat for all. The children dramatise for sheer joy in their playtime and dinner-hour; the little ones, at no other bidding than their own desire, sit and watch their elders. The pupils look forward with expectant joy to ' the examination papers and delight to write reams of answers. The only drawback is that the teachers have far more to do to keep pace with their pupils' progress, but they rejoice to do it.—Yours, etc., TEACHER. December 15th, .1931.