AN EDUCATIONAL SYMPOSIUM.

Evening Star, Issue 14962, 23 August 1912, Page 3

AN EDUCATIONAL SYMPOSIUM.

COMMISSION'S PvEPORT UNDER BEVIEW. No. 5. [By A Cocntbt Teacher.] What will the setting up of a Council of National Education accomplish? If it be truly representative of the interests concerned, and if the services of men of commanding . ability and singleness of purpose are forthcoming, it may do much to bring about needed co-ordination, and to make the teaching profession much more attractive than it is to tbe brainiest of our voung men and young women. It would, moreover, he a distinct gain that some members of the projected council should be in constant touch with the tctaal working of all phases of education within the Dominion. These members would not be mere theorists—one might almost have said faddists —and necessarily the council would also include capable men who had bv merit worked their way tip through eve'rv grade of the service. 1 feel 6ur« th:it had the advice of such men boert available in the past it would have helped to prevent such a muddle as has beer, perpetrated within recent years as the ""fiee-book system." The expenditure last vear on free books totalled £iO,ISQ, and yet in some schools 80 per cent, of the children still purchase their own books! I honestly believe that under the free-book system every £1 of expense saved to the parents has cost the State £10! The greater part of this money has been absolutely wasted. The section of the report that deals with the primary school Syllabus is well worth perusal by all interested in education. It is evident that the Commissioners had a clear grasp of the general principles that must necessarily be the aim of any primary school course. In connection with the important subject of reading, it is pointed out by them that this should be so treated as to give the pupils a real love for the reading of good literature. Unfortunately, it is sometimes treated so as to give them an utter distaste for good literature, in which case I would say that their education would be a lament; able failure, regardless of the number of examinations passed. It is pointed out that in the lower Standards (I. to IV.) the miscellaneous reader is unnecessary, and even harmful, if every extract is treated as a task.

The quantity of matter is so great that the cramming of all the lists of spellings and meanings, together with the explanation necessary, occupies so much time as to leave little or none for supplementary reading. The Commissioners recommend the use of the 'School JournaL' and also the greater use of supplementary readers, which they advise should be supplied to every school instead of the free books, and also state that

Silent reading, correlated with oral or written composition, geography, or history, should also be encouraged.

If these recommendations be given effect to they will tend towards the acquiring of a love of reading good literature, of which Sir John Herschel once said: Give a man this taste and the means of gratifying it, and _. ou can hardly fail of making him a. happier man, unless, indeed, you put into his hands a most perverse selection of books. You place him in contact with the best society in every period of history; with the wisest, the "wittiest, with the tenderest, the bravest, and the purest characters who have adorned humanity. You make him a denizen of all nations, a contemporary of all ages.

The other subjects of the primary school Syllabus are dealt with in a similarly enlightened and progressive spirit. I will deal very briefly with the comments on arithmetic. It is well known that after the introduction of the Syllabus of 1904 this important subject deteriorated in some of our primary schools. There was less attention given to mechanical accuracy. The fault lay partly in the Syllabus and partly in the wrong interpretation given to it by some of the inspectors. The emphasis given in the Syllabus to concrete examples being employed resulted in mathematical puzzles being given as tests to the pupils of the lower classes. Questions were given which it is very undesirable that children in such an immature period of development should be asked to solve. At a later age many of these questions will present no difficulty. There need, then, be no forcing of immature reasoning powers. One would have thought that this point had been sufficiently emphasised, but quite recently the following question was given to a Standard I. class:— A farmer has sheep in three paddocks ; the first paddock has 46 sheep, the second 58, the third paddock has twice as many as the second. How many sheep are there in the three paddocks? It is intolerable that pupils of such a tender age should be set to worry over such problems. Such a mistaken policy as to force such questions on young minds has been aptly termed " trying to make tadpoles hop," and can only result in injury to their mental powers. It is noteworthy that the Commissioners recommend increased attention to mechanical accuracy in arithmetic, which is surely one of the u i'ssentials " of primary education.