EDUCATION COMMISSION

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 June 1912, Page 3

EDUCATION COMMISSION

RECTOR BOYS’ HIGH SCHOOL. (BY 'TELEGRAPH. —PER Pit ESS ASSOCIATION.) DUNEDIN, This Day. Mr. Morrell, Rector of the Boys’ High School, complained of the poor teaching of history in the primary schools which was wholly neglected except for the efforts of the Navy League.

History must be compulsory ’on all teachers. A Chair of History tilled by a trained historian should be established in one of the university colleges. Mathematical geography in the primary course should be reduced and made more human.

More careful attention should be paid to vocal music, especially to accentuation and enunciation. The syllabus was a good one. None of its subjects can be dispensed with. He approved of the teaching of manual work in the primary schools. On the whole the product of the primary schools was satisfactory. People were too prone to institute comparisons between the picked pupils of fifteen years ago and the free placers. For himself he thought that there was a distinct improvment and good value for the money was being obtained in the secondary schools. If greater edicier) y ' was desired there must be increased expenditure in staffing, as in his school the average class was 29 per teacher, whereas the Secondary Teachers’ onferneoe unanimously decider! that the number should not exceed 25.

He strongly opposed the teaching of sexual physiology by what ho would call alienists. To do so by means of lectures would be a positive danger to the young. All private schools should be inspected by an officer of the Central Department for the protection of the public. If physiological instruction must be given it must be don© by a doctor or clergyman. v