Children and Books

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 123, 27 May 1933, Page 9

Children and Books

What is the real plirpose of education, and what does being. t "welleducated"' really ■ nieaii?,; Tllcse' are questions /which have begun to exor: cisc a good 'many ininds-of; late, and the fact that' a' recent ■■questionnaire submitted to British; schpol; children, revealed an '(almost 'total absence of desire on their part' to possess books of'their own,- would "seem to indicate a serious defect" somewhere' in the modern education.' system (states aa exchange). '~ 1 .'■'■'-V'-'-.."'' '."".' . \ An" overseas ; writer, perhaps, comes nearest to a solution of the problem when, she ppintsj out that what children hunger for is knowledge,' activity -and 'Opportunity, not' t text-bOQk information^ for 'text books are the' dry bones of learning and do not suggest ideas. Ideas come from direct contact with,, great 'minds—that is, through the medium of great literature. ', Give a child good literature and his appetite for ideas becomes insatiable! With our selections and snippets and! spoon-feeding, we have underrated \ the child's intelli-' gence and love of. iliying knowledge. It is through' ideas—not -'information., but the ideas suggested by information —that' the k mind- giows. We must not interfere .too'much^ but let the child delve fdr.'iiimsplf by: this direct contact with great; minds. In (the ordinary school class the teacher iocs most of the work—and the'children are often bored, except in rare cases,! when the teacher <;an. inspire, his. "subjeict with the spark of genius. '' . '.'■'• ' \ /./ ' Sto'rin 'Jameson ill ', a letter' ou the same theme develops 'ac similar argument. From the 'day at child learns to 'read (usually before'he goes to school) his rnina is 'either' bqiiig formed or •marred. The choice is'in the hands of his parent's or: whoever has charge of him.' Within reason ha does not mind what-he1 reads; 'he will read -what is put in his way. If .all he gets'is: apenny joke paper, ol- -th£ library books you leave about, ho wiS come to look on reading as a,;-last- rdfeource, failing all other forms of entertainment, and so miss the door into the richest of all worlds, tho world of literature. To give him books in which; under whatever guise, ho learns more of Hfo and the world than his Own small life gives him, is to put him in a nooin of windows and wide views. : It is now fairly realised that a child is-not being educated at ill unless he is'being taught tho right', uso of his mind. But docs every parent realise that this teaching begins < first, and only, at the moment in which he answers some childish question with a book and the suggestion: "Bead about it there?" If. is tho habit of going to books for an answer to problems in work or piny ' that is so essential, and of such. immense value in after life. •■■■■'■■

Honpj'Ynoon couples arc carried on Yugoslavian railways at half-fares. This is the latest phase in, a "war" on bachelors.