SCHOOL BOOKS

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 184, 2 May 1929, Page 18

SCHOOL BOOKS

4 ZTHE LITERARY SIDE OF, EDUCATION r A VALUABLE REPORT The report of the Consultatife Committee of the Board of Education on books in public elementary schools forms part of a much greater subject—the literary side of education, that is to say, the communication and stimulation of thought, knowledge, and the appreciation of what is best in life by means of the printed page. It is a not unusual criticism of our modern methods of specialised teaching, and especially in the region of applied science, that, while the pupils learn to talk in the language of the specialist, they are often incapable of translating specialist thought into the English language. Scientific thought can be penned in the best English, as the writings of Darwin, Huxley, and Michael Foster, and in current times the writings of Professor Eddington and Sir James Jeans abundantly prove. Many text books are written in a jargon that is a disgrace to the English language, while students are too often apt pupils of such teachers. The criticism is of vital importance. It is not merely a question of a pleasing prose style. Many great writers who are masters of English have by no means a pleasing style. It is a question of thought. If a student cannot convey to paper his thoughts lucidly the fact means that he is not really thinking lucidly, that there is some intellectual inhibition'due to defective education which is preventing his potential powers from having free play. So bad are many of the text books provided for secondary, and even for university, education that the teachers of ablilty prefer to have no books at all and to rely upon the method that obtained in the days before the invention of printing—oral teaching, supplemented by what were tn effect dictated notes. When this is the case the teacher is deliberately placing on one side the advantages that the invention of printing gives him, on tho ground that in his subject the authors of text books do not think and .write in a language fit for intelligent pupils. The subject of books for use in all grades of education is, therefore, one of the greatest Importance, and especially in the regions of mathematics, science, and medicine. . The Consultative Committee, though bound by their terms of reference, the selection and provision of books for public elementary schools and the improvement of their quality and supply, provide in their admirable report many passages that have a far wider application. They tell us that a capacity to use and appreciate books is an Indispensable element in “the liberal education whose foundations the elementary school exists to lay.” That sentence alone shows the new outlook on national education. Not so very long since the public elementary school was supposed to exist for the purpose of providing the masses of the population with that necessary minimum of education needed for the apprehension of daily work. To-day “the elementary school exists to lay” the foundation of a liberal education. The members of the committee are obviously shocked at the sparse provision of books in the elementary schools. Though they had not before them figures for the whole of England and Wales, they conclude that it is almost certain that the annual amount spent on books alone would represent less than one per cent, of the total expenditure per child incurred in maintaining the elementary schools; that is to say, somewhere about two shillings for each child. The actual figures for twenty-three local authorities (Including all grades of elementary education and not excluding central schools) have been secured. Two figures are amazing. Manchester spends 14.6 pence per child per annum, Stoke-upon-Trent 8.3 pence, Buckinghamshire 15.2 pence, Shropshire 15.8 pence. Those two rural counties have no central schools, so that the average is better than Manchester, where the average, which is lower than that of Shropshire, is greatly raised by expenditure in the schools providing “courses of advanced instruction.” The general average annual expenditure per pupil for the whole of the twenty-three counties is 19.9 pence. Such figures are astonishing, and in the case of the elementary schools they are the more astonishing since the education given is one that turns on the inculcation of the love of reading. In most, or at any rate many, secondary schools it might be assumed that a large part of the pupils have no need of stimulus so far as actual reading is concerned, though they need guidance. The printed book and news paper are part of their life. But in the elementary school the desire for reading has to be created as well as guided, and yet the mighty city of Manchester is content to spend on this .vital phase of education less than rural Shropshire. There must be something very wrong with our educational system, wrong with the training colleges, wrong with the local education authorities—the wrongness which is based on Ignorance of educational needs—when such a state of things is revealed.

It is not as if the books supplied are so excellent that there is no need to fret at the small quantity. It is true, as the committee point out, that the report on the influence of school books upon eyesight, Issued by the British Association in 1913, and the standard set by the London County Council and other authorities which issue lists of approved books, have resulted in the production of books for use in the elementary schools “attractive in appearance, easily legible, and capable of hard wear.” But the Bible, the best of all literary textbooks, does not share in these advantages, and there is reason to believe that the reading of the Bible in school is declining to such an extent as to “entail a progressive impoverishment of imagination and feeling which probably goes far beyond mere language.” The report, moreover, states that the supply of Bibles in many elementary schools is unsatisfactory, and there are local authorities who do scarcely more than provide one Bible for each class. The report recommends that every child who can read sufficiently well should be provided with a copy of one or more portions of the Bible in large and attractive form and type. Bnt the quality of the other books is not satisfactory so far as general use is concerned, since the committee plead for not only more books but for better books, and give in valuable detail full criticism of the books in use. This is Indeed the universal need. How can the need be supplied? The committee recommend the creation of local book list committees in the ten divisional areas Into which England and Wales are divided for the purpose cf inspection by the Board of Educaaau jffil fiaaiL&m ifea IS firns feasa ■

should be held by the board a central advisory conference dealing with the questions of supply, quality, and contents of school books. Even better than this, it may be suggested, would be a standing committee appointed by the universities of the country and meeting at good intervals, say, annually, to consider reports from the divisional book list committees. The provision of textbooks should be guided by the universities, since the universities are the potential goals of school pupils. In this way, and probably in no other way, will the innumerable examinational textbooks now in vogue for cramming purposes be rooted out. —“Times Educational Supplement”