PURE SPEECH SCHEME.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 24 March 1925, Page 7

PURE SPEECH SCHEME.

NEW ZEALAND ACCENT

A NEW TEXT-BOOK

“Touching the question of accent — the vexed question of pronunciation,’’ said the Minister for Education, Sir James Parr, in an interview in Wellington, “you will remember that I brought the matter up at the Inspectors’ Conference the other day as to whether we had or had not got a New Zealand accent. ‘‘Various opinions were expressed upon the subject, but it was generally agreed at the conference that vigilance was all the time necessary, on the part of * both inspectors and teachers, to check mischievous tendencies toward the deterioration of our English speech. I promised the inspectors that we would get a useful little text-book on phonetics and correct voice production generally for use throughout the Dominion. I have arranged accordingly that Mr William Bird. M.A. (senior inspector of schools, Wellington), and Mr T. Crawford (the well-known director of the Dumb School, Sumner, who has made a special study of the correct production of speech), shall collaborate in producing a suitable text-hook for the* use of young teachers in the training colleges', and of teachers in the field generally. It will also be of use to the senior pupils.”