The Dominion. MONDAY, MARCH 29, 1915. AN UNMERITED SNEER

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2421, 29 March 1915, Page 4

The Dominion. MONDAY, MARCH 29, 1915. AN UNMERITED SNEER

The New Zealand education 'system is handled rather severely in the course of a special article which recently appeared in the Melbourne Argus, entitled "Education Made Easy." The writer, who adopts the nom-de-plume "Studiosus," is angry because the Victorian Education Department, acting in conjunction with the University Senate, appears to be, giving favourable consideration to a proposal for restricting the scope of the external examination. Tho scheme under discussion would apparently give the Victoria system a closer resemblance to that of New Zealand. _ This leads "Studiosus" to make his tilt against the teaching ideals and methods of this Dominion. This is what he says:

The new system, it may be said, works in America; but that is no argument in its favour—rather the reverse. And in New Zealand; but it is very questionable whether the New Zealand education, either at university or secondary school, is so high in standard or so efficient in method as tho education m Victoria. The New Zealand system soems 'to be more bourgeois and more lower-middle class than the system here.

It is' difficult to estimate the comparative merits of two national systems of education such as those of Victoria, and New Zealand, nor are comparisons of this kind very satisfactory. The supreme test of the value of school methods is their effect on the life and character of the nation, and ho would be an extremely daring man who would undertake to decide whether the people of Victoria are on the wholo better, or wiser, or more progressive, or more highly cultured than the people of New Zealand. The aim of both systems is to build up a great nation— great in the best senEe of the word; and there arc no doubt many roads to that end. It shows lack of imagination, as well as lack of knowledge to think that there is only one ideal of greatness or only one way of attaining it. No educational system has a monopoly of all the virtues. There is certainly plenty of room for improvement in. the New Zealand scnool scheme. Wo know at least some of its faults, and are trying'to remedy them, but we have not hitherto been aware that New Zealand education was any "more bourgeois" or "more lower middleclass" than the education provided for the young people of Victoria. It is a pity that "Studiosus" has not given us a few facts or reasons in support of his contemptuous assertion that our schools are only suitable for shopkeepers. He probably means that our system pays too much attention to the business and mercantile side of life, and. does not provide adequate opportunities for the acquisition of culture in its higher an'd broader aspects. There may be a little truth m this criticism—there probably is; but disdainful references to the lower middleclass is certainly not a sign of culture. It is merely an indication of "the superior person."

In a democratic community class distinctions «s such should play no part in a national education system. The idea should be to make the best possible provision for the needs of all sections of the community. . Tt would be a great waste of time and energy to act on the baseless assumption that every child in the community is destined to become a. school-teacher, a lawyer, a doctor, or a University professor. As a matter of fact, only a comparatively small minority can find employment in these walks of life; yet in every civilised country facilities must be sivna t"r i.ha proper training nf (tec fitted by inclination and ab;l*

ity for a professional career. But such a career is no more useful or honourable than a mercantile position or the occupation of a shopkeeper. The vast majority of the community have to earn their living in agricultural work, in shops and offices, in factories, or in other industrial pursuits. It is, therefore, the business of a rational system of education to pay the fullest heed to the intellectual requirements of the boys and girls who are destined for such walks of life. Superior people may apply to it such epithets as "bourgeois" and "lower middleclass,'' but it will be none the less useful on that account. There may be some danger in the present tendency to belittle the competitive examination test. It certainly has many drawbacks, but it also has advantages for which it is difficult to find satisfactory substitutes. The time has not yet come for throwing it in its entirety on to the scrap-heap. The "examination fetish" has gone for ever. Examinations are no longer looked upon as the supreme test of intellectual efficiencv, but they may still have a useful, if humbler place, in the education systems of the world. "Studiosus" is quite entitled to utter a word of warning against their too-precipitate abandonment, but he only weakens his case by such a lapse as his unfortunate reference to New Zealand education. Ho lays himself open to the dignified rebuke of a critic who remarks that the sneer at the New Zealand system as being bourgeois and lower middle-class "does not come well from a man who advocates typewriting and such like as necessary to an elementary education. The only class distinction that one recognises in education is the aristocracy of brains."