ON READING!

Evening Star, Issue 16626, 8 January 1918, Page 6

ON READING!

MANUFACTURE OF SUPERFLUOUS DUMMIES. Mr Fisher, Minister of Education, speaking late in October at a prize distribution at the Frances ' Mary Buss School for Girls, Samden road, London, said that although in some respects our educational system did not compare favorably with the educational system in some other countries, he believed that our secondary schools for girls were easily the best in the world. He gathered that in that school they were jirosecutlng sport. He had always felt that there was a great danger that the leisure time of boys and girls in schools in this country might be over-organised. Ho was glad tb'e pupils had the opportunity of thinking and reading at their own sweet will. There was no art which was more valuable in after life than that ’of leisurely, meditatively reading for pleasure. There were hooks and text-books; his advice was “Rend books.” (Laughter.) Ho remembered when ho was at Oxford he had a .pupil who was the son of a small farmer. He said to that boy; “Do you get any encouragement at home?” The answer was : “Not much; for it father sees a book he says it is Socialism, and he throws it inln the fire.” He thought text-books were one of our great dangers. His advice was “ Read books, the great human books, the long books, the interesting books, the books which are not specially made to enable young people to pass examinations, because those honks really do the young people good.” Ha was not afraid to invite them to read really good books over and over again, and often to learn passages which struck them as peculiarly beautiful or peculiarly impressive. Ho was often struck with the extreme cleverness of quite, squall children, and the extreme stupidity and dullness of people of his own age (laughter), and he sometimes wondered whether, under the scientific process of education, we might not be manufacturing a certain amount of superfluous dummies. Stupid methods of teaching, and still more stupid methods of learning, might tend to dull the powers of , observation and to stultify the interests in ’ inquiry. One of their first duties was to keep the powers of observation alive, and to keep their interest fresh. The world was a very interesting place, and some of the most wonderful things were the commonest things in life. Nothing was really dull.