THE NEW EDUCATION.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 283, 24 August 1908, Page 6

THE NEW EDUCATION.

THE PRODUCT OF THE PRIMARY SCHOOL. « ITS VALUE TO SECONDARY EDUCATION. SOME INTERESTING OPINIONS. Thero-recently appeared, in the columns of The Dominion, an artielo 011 "Education in New Zealand," from tho pen of "Magister," who expressed the opinion that in our endeavours to grasp the pedagogic import of certain new ideas in modern education, we were in danger of neglecting the essentials of elomentary knowledge. His arguments were supported by tho opinions expressed by certain of tho headmasters of the city schools, who were interviewed 011 the points raised, tho general impression being that, so far as the essentials of knowledge—reading, writing, arithmetic, English, history, geography, and drawing—were concerned, there was a growing feeling that the scholars of the primary schools were, to-day, considerably below tho high water mark of efficiency readied some years ago. The fact was, as one headmaster who was subsequently interviewed put it, "The high-water mark of primary school efficiency was reached fifteen years ago; it has not touched that level since." • Having drawn from the headmasters of the city schools their views 011 the results of the now methods in education, it now remains to givo publicity to tho opinions of the principals of those secondary institutions in Wellington to which are admitted, annually, a certain number of pupils, who, having" obtained Sixth'- Standard certificates of proficiency, are entitled to freo secondary education. These pupils may be described as the cream of tha. primary Schools, because the proficiency examination of these schools effectually sifts the weak from the strong in scholastic ability. THE CLASSICAL COLLEGES. ; | Tho classical secondary colleges in Wellington ore the Wellington Boys' College, St. Patrick's College, and the Girls' College. These institutions are, properly spoaking, grammar Schools; the study of ancient and modern languages forms part of their' curriculum, and; therefore, the first ■ thing that the principal" of tho secondary school looks for is fundmental soundness in tho English liiiiguago—a clear understanding of tho principles governing, tho structure of tho sentence, for it is only upon the basis of tho broad grammatical principles of the English language that it is possiblo to teach to English-spoaking students those of another language. . Mr. J. P. Firth's Views.

1 Our representative' had no difficulty in grasping tho substance of the opinions expressed by Mr. J. P. Firth, headmaster of Wellington College, on tho quality of the material which came to the College from tho primary schools. He considered thatthe literary condition of tho proficiency scholars who were admitted to the College every year was growing steadily worse. "For the purposo of illustration," said Mr. Firth, "I will take tho 'Shell' Form. The 'Shell' is a picked class—in fact, its members are picked from tho picked scholars of the primary schools—and one might reasonably expect to find among the boys selected a standard of intelligence and general proficiency above the average. Very well, at the beginning of the year l.wcnt into the 'Shell' Form room —tho class numbers about thirty—. am) asked: 'llow many of you understand how to analyse a sentence?' Every hand went Up. 'Parsing?' Every hand again. 'Punctuation?! Another unanimous show of hands. If you were to go into that classnow, and ask these questions, you would not seo a single hand.' They know their limitations I ;havoi in„,mind ■ 0110 instance which affords a very good idea of the state of .primary- school English.*.-.,0ne,0f the. boys; horo—a bright and intelligent pupil —was asked to analyse the sentence 'He then came home.' Ho informed mo that tho word 'then' was tho predicate of the sentence!"' It was quite impossible, continued Mr. Firth, to attempt the teaching of elementary French and Latin until the boys at the College 'had been given a clear idea of the structural principles of their own language, and 'this meant that a considerable leeway had to bo made up before a proper start could be made with the foreign lan T guages. Ho agreed that in the old days thd teaching of formal grammar had been carried to absurd extremes, but to drop that im-. portant branch of study altogether was ab-' surd. There were fundamental principles ill English grammar which formed the basis -of practically all. languages. They could not be neglected;- . they should be thoroughly grasped. Passing on to other subjects, Mr. Firth, observed that the instruction, which was apparently given in history and geography in tho primary schools was too vague. Tho arithmetic standard was about the samo as formerly. The Reotor of St. Patrick's College. "English," promptly said the Very He v. Father Keogh, rector of St. Patrick's College, when asked by the Pressman to state the chief weakness exhibited by boys who came to him from tho primary schools. The essentials of primary education, continued the speaker, wero iu a very bad way; his principal grievance, however, was the hopeless ignorance displayed by tho boys in the fundamentals of their own language, and practically six months of tho year wore lost m patching up their deficiences in that respect. He related an amusing incident which occurred in one of the forms, r The subject of the lesson was the comparison of adjectives, and one boy was asked to stato the positivo, comparative, and superlative degreo of the word "Sick." Tho answer was "Sick—dying—dead!" Generally speaking, his opinions were in agreement with thoso expressed by Mr. Firth. The Teohnical School. The Technical Scliool is another secondary institution which receives proficiency scholars from the primary schools. Here, tho embryo citizen enters upon the second phase of his oducation, and specialises, to a certain extent, along those lines which he proposes to follow in bis life-work. Here, his primary education 'receives an extra polish as it, were, and ho is drafted either'into tho commercial classes or a particular trade class, according to his natural b'cnt. Naturally, a somewhat different typo of mind might bo supposed to be possessed by the boy who prefers commerce or trades to classics. Our representative visited Mr. W. S. La Trobe, Director of the Technical Scliool, and asked him how the standard of capacity and intelligence possessed by the average proficiency scholar fitted in with his ideas of what it should be. Mr. La Trobo said that if anything tho arithmetic was weak. A thorough groundine in arithmetic was essential to the successful study of mathematics. Co-ordination in Teaching. x Referring to the new ideas in education, ho said that, in theory, one would naturally expect ail intelligent teacher to illustrate his lessons by making use, as far as -possible, of oxternal objects—trees, plants, animals—and apply this principlo of co-ordination of ideas' to tho .extent that the pupils would bo led, naturally, to think for themselves, and construct their own ideas. This was an excellent principlo in education, but he thought that it had been distorted by the interpretation which tho teachers themselves bad given to it. Instead of using these ideas and methods as mediums of instructing essential principles, tlieso ideas and methods had themselves become tho objccts of instruction. The Study of English. So far as grammar was concerned, he was inclined to think that tho formal phase of languago study was not so important as some poople would havo us believe. It was, of course, essential . in classical colleges, whoro languages wero taught, but ho did not regard it altogether as a sine qua -non of citizenship. l-Io would prefer to see more reading, of a healthy and literary sort, donp by the scholars in their sparo hours. It wafc" necessary for tho thinking faculties that thero should bo at hand a good stock of languago for the clear and attractive presentation of a person's ideas, 'and nothing I but much reading of good books would sup-

ply that. What they really wanted to improve was tho language of the home, for inaccuracies of specch picked up in tno home were very difficult to eradicate. Tha Syllabus.. Mr. La Trobe ventured the opinion that tho principles involved in the structure of the new primary school syllabus had not been properly grasped by tho teachers, and that there had boen shown a tendency to attempt too much. It had to be-borne in mind that teachors had very wide powers of selection in framing their schemes of work, and should take into consideration the fact that a good deal of what' appeared to bo superfluous matter in tho syllabus was sibiply inserted as a medium by which tho essentials might ba reached.