EDUCATION—AND CRAMMING

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 24, 30 January 1928, Page 10

EDUCATION—AND CRAMMING

(To the Editor.) Sir,—l was attracted by the letter of "Retired Teacher" in your columns, in which the correspondent gives some very drastic criticism of our education system. And quite right too. No sane and sensible person can study the facts without coining to the conclusion that the cramming and jamming of our commercialised education system is disastrous .to the health of the student. To quote Sandow in "Life Is Movement": "Civilisation has been ably seconded by education in the spread of disease. All mental work, it must never be forgotten, imposes a great strain on the physical body, and in hard study as much as from 50 to 75 per cent, of the student's vital eriergy_ may be consumed." And when we consider that this 50 to 75 per cent, of strain is cast upon our students during their rapid adolescent development we can well see that it must produce trouble. And when we turn to the New Zealand Official Year Book, we find this trouble in tragic figures:—l9l9----23, average hospital population per year, 46,000, 357 per 10,000 population. Rises steadily each year to 1926, 08,391, or 484 per 10,000 population. Insane hospitals in New Zealand, 7 public, 1 private. Number of patients in these places at end of 1925, 5257, or 402 per 100,000 population. Number of admissions during 1925, 875. Now how on earth can we say that an "education" system that produces, or allows such a terrible harvest of disease is a good thing? Then we find quoting a report in the "Daily Herald," London, on sth December, 1927, by the chief medical officer, board of education: Cost of school medical service at Home, £3,064,188. Half a million children are dull and backward. Another half-million need medical attention. That this is due to lack of education of the right type is proved by the fact that where remedial and preventive measures have been taken, considerable improvement has taken place. But this, unfortunnately, hag not filtered the main principle of our 'education" system to-day, which is more cram than ever. And so all the remedial measures taken become nothing more than merely a scratching of the butface, or at any rate only the removal of effects, with a greater increase in the cause. The only possible way in which permanent and lasting good can be. attained is by a complete revolution in the principle; of education. Commercialism must be replaced by humanism, or as one gentleman aaid to me the other day: "100 per cent, less economics, and 100 per cent, more humanics in education, would give mankind a wiser lead, a stronger and a more noble conception of life in the place of a stomach which cannot digest what is put into it." Which means, of course, that our' commercialised "education" is simply warfare against Nature. We goad her to fury, and so we pay the price in tremendous hospital population, _ and an ever-growing list of mental defectives. We must not and we cannot tolerate this racial decay. Our slogan should be: "Less economics, 100 per cent, more humanics." —I am, etc., E. M. THOMSON. Ponsonby, 28th January.