AIM OF THE TEACHER

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 131, 4 June 1924, Page 14

AIM OF THE TEACHER

EDUCATION CONFERENCE

NECESSARY READJUSTMENTS

PROBLEM OF THE ADOLESCENT.

lJ»Oli OD* OW!« COERESPOSDtST.)

LONDON, 22nd April.

. Two thousand teachers spent their Easter' Monday listening to speeches' at the annual conference o£ the National Union of Teachers, which has beguu at Scarborough. ~

The. Archbishop of York, who was oneof the speakers, said that their teaching .was-in?vain.unless they taught children to teach ..themselves.'.' Unless teachers could succeed in .making children teach .themselves',--."'the ..greater.. part of their work, would" remain , undone. They should c'onti-ive to'arouse the interest.and the: curiosity of children'; it. was -not their .business to. furnishn children with correct answers to questions "which they or other clever ( people might - ask' them,'' but.tofgive-tliein "an insatiable desire to ask of themselves. By so doing, they would lay the foundation, of a-' system of education reaching from the elementary' schools to .the. universities. Ths. -one foundation upon; which the wholevstructure rested, was'.the. interest of- the- children; and if they left school with that interest quickened it would ;show that their teachers had .taken their part- in the whole system of education.; The -test leaving certificate'.'that "children could have was not a record of anything- that they had known, for most of that they, would forget,.- hut a desire to. know for themselves, which was something they.Vwould carry with them for the rest of their lives. If children were to be sent out from school at fourteen years of age with no prosepcts, do employment, and no continuation of education, their interests would' be quickly :dampecl down. It was very necessary, if the teacher was to arouse the interest of the. child,, that classes should be of a size where the function of the teacher could "be exercised to the highest possible point. He rejoiced to think that the-great, teaching profession, the education Authorities, and the Board of Education .were coming nearer his own ideal of what national education ' should be. The. ideal of education used to be regarded by many as a mere paradise, but it was becoming a reality—the1 ideal that teachers should receive the best possible training and the highest possible salaries, and should teach the fewest possible • subjects to the smallest possible classes. Every tiling depended, upon the use of the word "possible," but we existed to make the possible actual.

-THE BUTCHERY OF TALENT.

.. Mr.". Michael Conway,. of. Bradford, who was installed as the new president, ■in'the course, of his address, said that the growing and inevitable complexity 'o£ civilisation -was demanding more and more from every citizen' a higher plane of intelligence, an extended moral outlook, and a courageous acceptation of new standards of civic and social responsibilities. ' Without readjustments to new circumstances and conditions failure was inevitable. . Invention, ,means of transit, connective ' links" between the nations were annihilate ing space, and the world was becoming smaller. Life itself was becoming speeded up to a degree unknown fifty years, ago. - Could they face their great national and Empire problems, their world problems,", with an education system rooted in the requirements of what was thought necessary , a half-century ago, short-cir-cuited, by class and monetary considerations^ cribbed, cabined, and confined by the limitations of prejudice and ignorance? The marvel was that the administrator and the teacher had done so well in the 'circumstances. It was a tribute to their' faith, their sincerity, their-optimism, that the results showed a far. better return than might have been anticipated -with the means at their disposal: ' intellectual probity and balance; high moral endeavour, noble as.piratibns, and ideals, recognition of civic duties and obligations—how could these be secured without a generous provision of education for the child, the ; adolescent,., aml'the adult? Unfortunately, education".was, Lazarus-like, still standing at the/gates." What they sowed in one generation they.. reaped in the next, and if ifc were possible to present in cold statistics the- butchery of talent ,that_..eusued,fr.6m\]ack of educational provision .and opportunity, it would as-tourid--|iud -alarrarthe .nation.

NEGLECT •OF THE ADOLESCENT.

Mr. . Conway proceeded to review the relations between -primary and secondary education, declaring that there was no real connection between the two systems. Independently : born, fostered and nurtured, "they were supposed to represent two distinct needs—needs not determined by educational necessity but mainly by: economic status and social consideration. There had been a paral-* ..lei.growth.'-of two systems, with differ- • ent regulations, organisation, equipment, class...of building, and amenities Iney were not branches of one tree, but .separate trees, nurtured in different soils . . But.'the • line .--flower of their neglect wf * , >eaiW'?i?t -'of the adolescent, wnafnad occurred during: the period of economy? Round about. six hundred thousand children were released from the primary school every, year to enter .employment. 1,, a time of unparalleled industrial stagnation, when from one-to two million adults had'been'unemployed at one time or other during the past three years, they had poured over a milion and a half of children into the lubour^ market to aggravate the disease. *or hundreds of thousands of these there had been exposure to the.demoralisation f>t an adle freedom which was tragic in its consequences. Any far-seeing GovS3T. Tr ld i mre said: u'nss ™*t mnmat school until they can find suitable work." But blind parsimony destroyed the means provided for this esTh °f the se.-vice. JMt h, ad,yet to-Buffer the penalty of 'mid ,1 it HT> eaV 8' ne§lect- n/tion paid at-the beginning or at the end. and "innino-9 VayS IMper t0 pay afc the he'