THE SCHOOLS' MISSION.

Evening Star, Issue 24919, 17 July 1943, Page 4

THE SCHOOLS' MISSION.

Kvkx in education ft is easy, in avoiding one peril, to fall into another. A chief reason given by the Minister a few weeks ago for extending the school leaving age was the provision of supervision! and discipline for children that would save them, at a critical age and in war conditions of one-parent control, from temptations of delinquency. And now the School Committees' Association of Otago has endorsed a motion passed by representatives of. the Auckland Education Board and the Aucklaud Head Masters' Association whioh suggests that seeds of delinquency may be sown in the schools themselves. The motion stated that " the opinion of the head masters present was that the introduction into the schools of the socalled New Freedom, combined with the limitation of corporal punishment, has resulted in a deterioration of school discipline and the attitude of the child towards effort."

Child delinquency at the present time is not so much a malady as a danger. While its prevalence has been exaggerated, sufficient symptoms of it have been evident to make watchfulness and coun-ter-influences important. The Auckland educationists mentioned two encouragements of it in the schools. Like the elin/rnian of the local association, they no cloubt mentioned more outside them. We are not impressed by the " limitation of corporal punishment " in primary schools as an inducement to delinquency. The best teachers will

have least need for that to support their authoritv. A few strokes of the birch, at a slightly older age, for misdemeanours tliat are grave enough to bring a youth before the magistrate, may have a wholesome value for correction, and no headstrong youth will be helped in self-control by the law that makes those inapplicable.. The influence of the schools, however, should be boyond question or reproach, and it is a serious indictment which charges them with being discouragers of discipline and of effort.

The last part of the charge may have as much cause to be disturbing as the first. That " there is no royal road to learning" is an old saying. The principle of the New Freedom which nas made extended inroads into the primary schools during the last few years seems to be based on complete contradiction of this maxim. )t is sought to lead the child by royal and easy ways not so much, perhaps, to learning, or knowledge, as to a brighter intelligence, greater resourcefulness, and other things that are less capable of being assessed. The objects are good if they can be achieved without too much injury to the older one, but a danger was risked .which some head masters, as well as others, now evidently fear has not been circumvented. Ah old description of the expert describes him as one who knows more and more about less and lews. Many would say that, under the New Freedom, and with the abolition of the old proficiency examination, we have been turning out from the first mills of the education system products who know less and less about more and more. There may be compensations, but it is to be hoped that, with the provision for an extended school age and for new courses to accompany the subordination of matriculation, the process will not he too unrestrainedly carried into the secondary schools. "'