The Dominion WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, SCHOOL AND THE WORLD

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 54, 27 November 1929, Page 10

The Dominion WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, SCHOOL AND THE WORLD

Two observations by well-known New Zealand educationists within the last few days invite attention to human waste m the schools Professor I. Macmillan Brown, Chancellor oi. the New zZd University, aJd Mr. J. H. Howell, PnncTai of Wei Technical College, drew attention, on separate °eeasions tq, the importance of devising a system o f classifying capacity prevent the human waste occurring annually as the result of pla g young"people in departments oi study for which they have no specal '"'"'it is now a well-established fact that every year hundreds pi boys and girls find their ways into secondary schools and the University without any prospect oi benefiting from the courses of st"S It is also to be regretted that there is no provision for compelling boys and girls who enter secondary is here meant technical and grammar schools—to remain in these institutions for a definite length of time These were> thei points presented respectively by Professor Macmillan Brown and Mr. Ho e . What our education reformers have to do is to simplify m some way the complications raised by these two ques ions. No race or nation advances,” observes Professor Macmillan Brown, unless there is a method of drawing out its special talents and stimulating it has been found to .^ e f ar ?.'. e^%°rd^” l ?’ difficult matter to devise a scheme which would facilitate the effo ts of the educationist to classify various intellects and aptitudes which pass before him in the round of the year. Too many children are swarming into the grammar schools who ought to be in the technical schools and vice-versa. Too many also are entering the university colleges ill-qualified to undertake the degree courses of study. The Parliamentary Select Committee now taking evidence as to the best means of reforming the education system will probably find that its fundamental difficulty will be to devise a system which will enable aptitudes to be classified. Should the classification be by examination or selection? It will probably be very difficult o the Select Committee to escape entirely, from the traditions which at present encumber the system. Yet it is only by a process of intelligent and discriminating selection that different aptitudes may be classified and directed along the most suitable avenues of study in the secondary schools and the University.. . The whole object of education, as appreciated to-day, is to teach people how to live usefully, efficiently, and happily. Hitherto we have concentrated overmuch on examination passes and not enough on the discovery and cultivation of latent abilities. It was remarked the other day that-a successful man, though comparatively uneducated, was as able a man as another whose academic honours made a fairsized paragraph after his name. How much more able might he have been had the means been at hand to develop his native talent for achievement instead of repressing it by examination preparation. ' One begins to 'wonder at this stage whether the world is not really much more indebted than it realises to those hardy spirits who' in olden days ran away to sea, and foreign climes, rather than submit to the repressions of an archaic system of education.