The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1908. THE VALUE OF ENGLISH EDUCATION.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2126, 27 February 1908, Page 2

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1908. THE VALUE OF ENGLISH EDUCATION.

The American Ambassador to Great Britain, Air. AVhitclaw Reid, on December 26, delivered a most interesting address at Syracuse, whero American teachers are holding a conference, in the course of which ho paid many tributes to the excellence of tho English system of education. It was, says the New York correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, “a very long speech, crammed with facts calculated to make those Britishers who delight in national self-depreciation and in odious comparisons -at the expense of British institutions and methods, blush with shame. AVhatever else we may say about the English schools, they do turn out woll-bc-haved and orderly boys and girls, respectful to those set over them, grounded in the morals of Christian civilisation, with an instinctive sense of obedience to the law -and a becoming regard -for the authorities that represent it. YYould we he any worse off if we had more of these qualities hero.”

If the English schools, according to our ideas, go too far in teaching creeds, may we not be going too far the other way, in some parts of the country, at least, in excluding altogether, or in giving too little space to the teaching of unsectarian religion and morals, to enforcing respect for authority, and to -training a habit of mind that secures unhesitating obedience to the law and it's officers? In London the policeman, tho representative of the law, often controls the biggest and angriest crowd by lifting his hand in cases' where tho New York policeman has to lift -liis club. Nay, here the giddy chauffeur, for a single example out of many, gaily snaps his fingers at tlie uplifted club and has to -be run down on a motor-cycle. Even then when caught ho is apt to tell tlie presumptuous policeman that he means to have him ‘broken’ for his pains. Such a threat in London would railroad him to a long term in gaol. Some cause has this difference. Is it improbable that early training in a school that could be nowise escaped by tho growing hoy had something to do with it? Continuing, tlie Ambassador said that in tho London elementary schools fads and frills might oxist in regard to the subjects taught, but these were not permitted to take the place of essentials. ‘Whatever else the London child may learn at a national school, ho must and- does learn to read, write, and cipher. Two out of the three he generally learns remarkably well. Nothing is apt to strike the American more when he comes to know the product of the English elementary schools than t-hcer thoroughness in these essentials. I have rarely seen a domestic servant who did not have a fairly good handwriting, and spell with more- accuracy than some of our own misguided American college professors. AYould

that we could say as much for all the graduates of our colleges.’ Finally, the -Ambasudor paid an oloquont tribute to the Rhodes i.cliolnrs at English Universities. Ho said ; ‘About them all was tho air of new worlds, and a now era, one might almost fancy their oyes had already seen tho glory of tho timo wlion, under tho loadcdship of tho Englishspeaking peoples, tho war drum throbbed no longer, and tho battle flags woro furled, in the parliament of man, the federation of the world.’ ”