“More Brainwork By British Schoolboys”

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28766, 11 December 1958, Page 7

“More Brainwork By British Schoolboys”

The English schoolboy works far harder with his brain than his New Zealand counterpart, and this is because there is no open sesame to any university, but the whole question of places is highly competitive, too competitive, for in many cases specialisation begins at a ridiculously early age and the lesser schools have to be quite unscrupulous about it, said Mr H. R. Hornsby, headmaster of Christ’s College, at the college’s annual prize giving last evening- . . . “Public opinion expects boys to work hard now in England—it has been the case for generations in Scotland, but it is a comparatively recent idea in England—and many boys grow up in an atmosphere where they expect to exert themselves, and their parents expect them to be stretched.” he said. “I found the Vlth forms I took, far more intellectually grown up than their counterparts here, somewhat cynical however, worried about the future and the possibility of another war, convinced that education was something of value to them, and that their finances at university and possible success in the future depended on a good use of their school time and the passing of examinations.*’ he said. Public Opinion “I do not think that the English Vlth form boy or undergraduate has the common, sense or selfreliance of the New Zealand boy, nothing like as much, but the standard attained at school in science, mathematics, and languages is far in advance of anything achieved in this country at school, and that will be the case until public opinion here demands a change, and indeed the whole tempo of educational life here quickens.

“I should be worried if I had to run a school in England because of the cut-throat competition for universities which must too often lead to cramming, and because the problem of deploying, with a scientific background. into industry vast numbers of boys who previously automatically went into the Army. Navy, Air Force, the Colonial Service, the I.C.S. or the Sudan, probably with an arts background, is one that calls for considerable effort and adjustment on all sides, not least on the part of many masters who are not necessarily at present equipped to give that scientific or industrial bias to the life of a secondary school, be it grammar of public,” Mr Hornsby said. Possibilities of TV “I was struck by the vast possibilities of television, and the help which it is already to schools, for the children’s television programmes were the best I saw. I saw some admirable teaching, and some pretty dim stuff too, as you would expect, and I had a chance to weigh up what we attempt here and what we achieve against other schools

said Sim ‘ lar type in En Bland,” he Clever boys should start Latin, French, algebra and • geometry long before the age of 13 he said. “As it is, the years when the groundwork of these subjects can be taught and learnt (without difficulty, indeed, with pleasure are wasted. We then try to cram into a few years at a secondary school what should have been learnt before, and therefore so many boys never achieve much proficiency—particularly in languages. for they are compelled to give them up at a time when the subjects are only just becoming interesting. I do not mean all boys should do this, but it is a pity that those who could with profit do so are not able to begin earlier, and we too often specialise too soon on a narrow range,” Mr Hornsby said. “English schools have their problems; their academic ones are different from ours, their human ones are much the same, but there are, I wound say, far more misfits in English schools than there are in our society here,” said Mr Hornsby.