EDUCATIONAL MISFITS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 46, 31 August 1928, Page 14

EDUCATIONAL MISFITS

-'KEPLY TO MR/'MILNERj; ;(To the Editor.); > Sir,—Mr. F., Milner, rrector oLt.be Waitaki Boys' High School, has gone to considerable trouble to demonstrate that life knowledge of the education systems of the world is complete in every detail, and that he alone is capable of■ adjudicav, tiug upon what is good for this Dominion. /With a. superciliousness that is characteristic of the inflated gedagogue, he suggests that my mentality, has elvolved,to a : stage beyond maturity. :If I were',to .retort that his mentality had not yet reached the stage of maturity, he would: probably regard the suggestion as a piece of gratuitous impertinence. These pedagogues, however,1 reserve-to themselves, the privilege of employing subterfuge in lieu of argument, and if they-are taken to,task, they hold up their hands and, in the hackneyed phrase of one of them, declare themselves to be "sacrosanct." But Mr. Mijner has been, to America, and: in the course of a few weeks has been able to gather the results of the junior'high school system in that country* ,"' Like many other misguided individuals, he has arrived at the conclusion that: what is supposedly good for the United States must of necessity be good for the rest of the world. For myself, I cannot follow Mr. Milner in this peculiar line of argument; '■■■,- r So far as the opinions of the great educational authorities of Britain are concerned, I do not, as facetiously suggested by the egoistic rector, disagree with them. Xh'e Hadow Report is a most valuable document, though it is fair to state that,it has not yet been acted upon. But it is* news to me to know that it Tecommendsthe establishment of schools of the character of the junior high schools that have .been instituted in New .Zealand: It recommends -that' secondary education should; began at the age of ill, but it does hot recommend!that thisi secondary: education shall be chiefly academic. Ahdit.is because it is chiefly.academic at the Wai: taki Junior High. School ■ that -I, consider the system' a failure. ,1 repeat that' ,we are creating, at'enormous expense, an ,army of social ;migfitg." It is .very well for those who are engaged in the education profession'to employ their ingenuity in fortifying their positions.1' And as it was Mr. Milner who prompted Sir James Parr, the then -Minister of -Education,- to endeavour to' Americanise "this country by adopting its educational methods^ he naturally feels that any attack upon the' system must reflect upon himself. But those 1 who have to pay the piper—the heavilyburdened taxpayers of the country—have a Tight to know'that they are getting the best possible value for their; money. With due respect to'Mr. Milner and his titled and urititled witnesses in other countries, I am. bold.enough.to.'assert -that we are not.; ■.: ■■'' '.'■ " ■ " ' ; . '. '■.."■•. The opinion of,a great many people in Oamaru' and elsewhere concerning , the junior high school system has been substantially modified.,since,the experiment has been tried. Mr.' Milner'would do well to ask Mr; Caughleyy the late head of the Education Department in New; Ze^. land (who spoke-in Oamaru in favour of junior-high schools), what he now thinks aboutthem. In spite of the pyrotechnics and special pleading of Mr. Milner, I persist in my contention that the junior high school system is too expensive for this Dominion; that it has a strong tendency to create centralisation; tliat it is manufacturing square pegs for round holes; that it is unfair. to the children -in the country districts;' thai,'1 instead of breaking down class barriers it is accentuating social snobbery; and that this young country, cannot stand the strain that is being placed upon its^restricted resources in the erection of palatial edifices such as that recently erected in Oamaru for the accommodation of junior high school girls. We arc-not living, in a country like America, that has mopped up the • wealth of the/world. Nor are our conditions similar to those that exist*'in' the . Old Gountry, We are not as much .concerned in what Home authorities think of the ' Hadow Reportaß ,to what New Zealanders think of the 'junior high school system after it has been given a trial. Mr. .Milner niay think myself fifty years behind the'times. I am not troubled in the least what he thinks. But I make bold to,'say that there are not scores, nor hundreds,' but thousands of people in this Dominion who will regard it as a national calamity if the present Minister of Education, permits . himself to be cajoled by idealistic arid, over-enthusiastic pedagogues; into extending a system that has not produced the goods, that 'is extravagantly [expensive, and that may be attended with incalculable injury to the rising generation of this otherwise richly-endow-ed country.—lam, etc.. ARTHUR H. VILE. Oamaru, 30th August.