Propaganda in Schools.

Evening Star, Issue 17926, 23 March 1922, Page 6

Propaganda in Schools.

It is not surprising that strong opposition has been expressed against tho ns© mado of Report No. 13 of tho Education Department, •which deals with the effect qf alcohol on tho human body and mind, in tho distribution of it among school children and making it a subject for essay competitions. Apart from the reference to diseased which should not be obtruded on childish minds, the report was not written for children. It would bo a most precocious pupil of Standard IV. who could get much real intelligence from its language. The department mod tho report in tho right way, if it was to ho used at all in schools, in making it information for the guidance of teachers, to bo imparted at their discretion and in their own language. That suggestion, plainly iirdicated, of its unfitness for direct absorption by youthful minds has been overruled by the zeal of tho New Zealand Alliance, anxious forth e widest dissemination of any teaching that might servo the cause of its special propaganda, and the heedlessness of the Education Board, which must perceive now that a mistake was mado by it when its consent was given to tho Alliance's bright scheme. A report has been distributed amongst children which was never meant for their direct reading, with incentives to pore upon it and sadden their young minds with evils and problems from which the ago of childhood might well bo spared. Temperance teaching, within childhood’s limits and proceeding no further than the question of temperance, can only be commended; but why should children of Standard IV. bo encouraged to describe “what changes would take place in life in Now Zealand if there were no public-houses and no liquor traffic”? At their time of life they should have no call to know anything about public-houses; and the far from simple question of Prohibition, which is directly raised by this question, is one for their elders to decide. Opinions are not yet so united upon it as to make Prohibition, as distinct from temperance, a fit subject for propaganda in public schools. The idea of small students burrowing in dictionaries to learn what they can of venereal diseases, or striving for more knowledge of hotels than most of them can be expected to have, in order to win prizes from the New Zealand Alliance, is not one that is attractive to the imagination. The Education Board cannot bo too onr°f”l in the opportunities it allows to ; ■ 'tes to press their debatable doctrines in tho schools.