EDUCATION SYSTEM

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 256, 24 July 1924, Page 4

EDUCATION SYSTEM

VISITING PROFFSSOR ADDRESSES TEACHERS. (BY TELEGRAPH. -PRESS ASSOCIATION.! Auckland, July 22. Professor John Adams. Emeritus Professor of Education at London University, gave an address to teachers to-day on post-primary education, illustrating tho differences between the education sj-stcins in England and Amer-ca, and also in France and Germany. He i.u.co with emphasis that in England the distinction between the elenieti' ury and secondary schools was along the lines of social’ cleavage. The worst evils of tho old system had entirely gone, giving way to a broader conception of the educational needs of the nation, the wider practice in promising conditions of practical- as well as cultural education. Traces of tho old system still lingered in England, but tho gulf between elementary and secondary schools had been brid"ed.' Huxley onco wrote strongly of tho educational ladder leading from the gutter to tho university, but that had since been countered by Professor L'.wrie, of Edinburgli, who had lectured on how to obtain for children of the well-to-do some of the advantages of the gutter. Tho guttersnipe had a nimbleness of certain knowledge, mostly confined to coin of the realm, but it hud its limitations. From what he had already seen in Auckland, school children hero were gaining all the advantages of tho -utter without any disadvantages- ” Professor Adams spoke of tho necessity for wise supervision and guidance of 'boys and girls between the ages of 14 ami IS which was the most crucial stage of their lives. "I think,” he said, "we should make more allowance than we do for the dull boy and the dull girl. It would be letter to give them the kind of work thev enn do instead of continually boring 'them iVifh our literary and artistic ideas, wjth which they have no concern. We arc doing them harm instead of good.” . Under proper supervision and a special course of instruction, be added, children could lie raised to a high standard of citizenship. What we wanted was good citizenship without talking too much’ about it as in America. It was a pleasure to see that Now Zealand was training its citizens in a reticent way that was admirable.