SCHOLAR AT HOME

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 55, 2 September 1937, Page 11

SCHOLAR AT HOME

THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

(Special to the "Evening Post.")

MASTERTON, This Day,

Some interesting observations on the modern development of secondary education in England were made here by Dr. A. E. Fieldhouse, an old boy of the Wairarapa High School, who has just returned to the Dominion after completing an extended post-graduate

course in. London, "During my two years in England," Dr. Fieldhouse said, "I was able to study many types of schools. Amongst those which impressed me most favourably were the great public schools. It is unfortunate that in New Zealand we have formed a totally erroneous conception' of the 'public school boy.' In fact our conception of an English public schoolboy is a cruel caricature of the average specimen. Contrary to common belief, the public schools are remarkably liberal in the education they provide. As a rule, there are • three streams in the school—the purely academic and ■ classical, the 'modern' (i.e., modern languages, geography, economics, etc.), and the scientific. In each of these streams there are keenly intelligent boys, though, owing to the fact thaht most of the scholarships to Oxford and Cambridge are classical in nature, there is a tendency for the more intelligent to take the academic course. This is a tendency deprecated by most of the heads but in this respect the schools are the victims of history '

"It is. becoming increasingly common to appoint young men as headmasters. Like America, England is finding it profitable to benefit by the energy and ingenuity displayed by some of the younger men. Workshops and craft rooms are another feature new to the public schools. There the boys embark on ambitious projects such as building boats and engines and receive a very thorough manual training—all within the walls of a supposedly academic institution. At Marlborough the.wireless clubs function most successfully, the boys having several registered transmitting stations. They have also invented and constructed a number of portable transmitting and receiving sets which are used in connection with their Officers Training . Corps. . The War Office heard of the success of these sets and eventually bought a number of them from the boys for use with the detachments recently sent to Palestine. The boys were called upon to demonstrate the use of the sets to the troops.

"The most obvious lesson we have to learn from the English public schools," said Dr. Fieldh'ouse, "is that an academic, a 'modern,' or a scientific education need not.and should not be narrowly academic, modern, or scientific. It is possible and advisable to make provision for a more liberal education within the walls of one school.

"It interested me to find," Dr. Fieldho.use added, "that in the public schools English as such had never been taught in the past. Nowadays it is taught, because it is found that the boys Of today have not the same command over their native language as was formerly usual. Whether this is due to home or preparatory school conditions, the masters were_ not usually prepared to say."