THE BEST TYPE

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 145, 16 December 1933, Page 29

THE BEST TYPE

EDUCATION OF YOUNG

PREPARATION FOR LIFE

"A headmaster has to be careful these-.days, when the economic pressure is so insistent, not to lose sight of the actual goal to which he is making his way," stated Mr. F. M. Benrier principal of Eongotai College, in "his. annual report. "Ho should rempgiber that the best type .of education, is the one .that prepares for life, not for livelihood.

"Too often we find the tendency to force education into the utilitarian rut —to turn out a boy from the school at the., earliest possible nioment and from the very outset to give a special-, ised form of training for a definite trade or profession. That process, to nay thinking is'utterly wrong.. Jsv.ery specialised job .should haye' its' basis on a thorough all-round education. Hence, our job at this school is to discover in a general.,way, in our lower school, along. what lines a boy can be best educated, whether along the academic or along the manual, then to take him aid try him out with those subjects of our curriculum that his mentality and ability most respond to. At the earliest, period, after five years (two in the lower school and three in the Upper).he is permitted to- specialise in preparation for accountancy, law, medicine, science, etc. It would be a great pity if hard times, general depression' and parents' anxiety should force our.post-primary schools either in the direction of a too-early specialisation, or into giving a wholly material bias to education and thus encouraging parents to tgke their boys away from school at the earliest possible moment, for them, to commence their life work hopelessly ill-equipped.''

Mr. Benner also mentioned that" the school had fjilly realised the responsibility of placing, as many boys as possible in suitable avenues of employment, and he was glad to say success had attended their endeavours. The T>oys placed in positions were carefully watched for at least two years, until they felt the boys not longer needed their help or advice. It was often said that the boys most difficult to place were those "who had passed the University Entrance Examination and stayed on for another year in the Vlth Form. At Eongotai they had no difficulty in placing these boys either in banks, insurance offices, accountancy firms, etc. Their Vlth form at the beginning of this year was 46 in number. It was now down to 20.