The Hawera Star. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1925. JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 23 November 1925, Page 6

The Hawera Star.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1925. JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS.

Delivered every evening by 5 o'clock in Hawera, Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa, Eltham, Maugatoki, Kaponga, Alton, Hurleyville, Patea, Waverley, Mokoia, Whakamara, Ohangai, Meremere, Fraser Hoad. aDd Ararata.

It was most unfortunate that the evening which the Director of Education was able to spare for an address in Hawera on the new junior high school system should have been one of the busiest of a busy week. For there is good reason to believe that the average parent has only a very hazy notion of what is meant by a junior high school, and perhaps no notion at all of those changes in the developing child mind to meet which modern educational methods are specially adapted. For the benefit of those who were not at the meeting, and who may have missed the report in our columns on Thursday last, it may be well to recapitulate some of Mr. Caughley'a leading points. The junior high school is intended to be the means of splicing the present primary and secondary systems into one unbroken rope from the infant classes to university entrance standard. Almost we had used the word “link”; but the aim. of those behind the junior high school movement is that the new institutions shall be much more than a link between the two types of schools with which the country is at present familiar. Steady and orderly growth is the ideal all through Nature. .Farmers know that the staple of their fleeces betrays any severe set-back which sheep may have suffered, from weather, disease or lacii of feed, since last shearing; and grain which begins slowly, then comes away with a rush after early summer rains, is weak in the stalk and often unable to stand any extra strain when the weight of the ear is upon it. And what holds good in the lower walks of Nature is equally true in her highest—in the growth of the human mind. While it is impossible to set exact limits—even if we had any means of determining them, they would vary in every individual case—it may be said generally that our minds, reaching their “second leaf’' as it were at the age of four or five years, are growing, budding and unfolding over the next twenty years. Education does not develop a boy's mind; Nature does that. Education may lay itself out to work in harmony with Nature, and to place fresh interests and fresh studies before a child as his mind expands from stage

to stage. That is the idea behiud the junior high schools. In the present school system there is a violent break between primary and secondary, between the sixth standard and the third form. The first weeks in a secondary school bring upon the pupils a perfect avalanche of now subjects—Latin, French, Geometry, Algebra, Science. Shorthand, Book-keeping, Engineering Practice, and so on. Not that there is any fault to find with new subjects; the weakness lies rather in the rush' with which the fresh studies must be begun. Why the rush? Simply because our New Zealand children arc late in reaching their Latin, their French and their Mathematics: The elementary stages of a new language, or of any science, should be entered upon gradually, that the child mind may accustom itself to new lines of thinking, and that the pupil may get a thorough grasp of the beginnings of his subject. But teachers find that they must hurry over the early stages of secondary instruction if they are to cover the requirements of the various public examinations for which they have to prepare their pupils in two, or three, or four years; and the result of this attempt at building on an incomplete foundation is against the interests of the pupil. Put baldly, it as cramming—cramming for the purpose of some set examination —and cramming is not education. It is proposed now to allow more time for the laying of foundations by making a beginning two years sooner, by passing a pupil on to the junior high school when he has come through the fourth standard, and devoting the next three years to mixed primary and secondary studies. The work at present done in the fifth and sixth standards will be carried on—will indeed bo spread over an additional year —but side by side with this the pupil will learn the elements of French, of Home Science, of Agriculture, and so on, according to the course he elects to take in the junior high school. Three-fifths of the school week will be devoted to carrying on the ordinary primary work, and these classes will be taken by all the pupils. The remaining ten hours a week are to bo given over to elementary secondary work, academic, commercial, technical, rural and home science courses all being offered. Gradual progress is the motive of the whole scheme. In the three years at the junior high school the pupils will do no more secondary work than is done in the first year of the existing high and technical school courses; but wliat they do will be done thoroughly, and it will offer a much more stable foundation for future building. In addition, there is the psychological factor to consider. Somewhere between the ages of eleven and thirteen years, children enter upon the adolescent stage of their lives. It is then that the girl puts away her dolls and the boy turns from marbles to the more manly football and cricket. Both are leaving their childhood behind them and looking forward into life: and then is the time when they should bo introduced to wider and deeper studies. The present division between primary and secondary schooling comes too late; with the establishment of the junior high school, his education will be better graded to suit the child’s opening mind.

.So much for the general question of the purpose of the junior high school. The decision of last week's meeting to make application for the establishment of one in Hawera is of more local interest. We have not had time to touch on the several difficulties which must be overcome before the new system can be brought to general application; but, in any case, difficulties are not to be considered when it is known that the children of the country will be the better for the change. And, in the case of the proposed Hawera Junior High School, the difficulties do not present themselves. They will arise mainly in the outer country districts. The new system cannot be launched upon the Dominion in one term, nor in one year. It must be instituted by degrees, and before its institution is decided on exhaustive trials must be made. There are already five junior high schools in operation, four in the Auckland province and one at Oainaru. Their success augurs well for the ultimate adoption of the system generally, at any rate so far as the towns and more closely settled country districts arc concerned. But the people of Taranaki will rightly demand a demonstration nearer home than Matamata or Whangarei, and to that end the Hawera Junior High School would be an object lesson to the whole coast from New Plymouth to Wanganui. If wc thought that these trial schools would later be abandoned and the presentsystem retained, we should be the last to advocate the establishment of a junior high school in this district. Be cause we are convinced that the new system is right and wise, because it is meeting with such” success in older countries, we believe that it is coming to stay in New Zealand. Therefore we welcome the public move now made in support of the Hawera Technical High School Board's application. In time there w T ill be a line of junior high schools through Taranaki —remember every pupil of the fifth and sixth standards has to be catered for—but the province is entitled to one of the iirst dozen or twenty, if only to demonstrate the advantages of the new system; and officers of the Education Department', the Director included, have indicated Hawera as a most suitable centre for its establishment. Here is a better type of schooling for our boys and girls. Are we ready to exert ourselves to secure it? The answer by teachers, school committeemen and parents present at Mr. Caughley’s address was an emphatic “Yes.’' In

addition, tlie authorities oi ! the Technical High Sehool are ready to have the new venture associated with that school. When all most intimately concerned are so favourably disposed, and when departmental experts have signified their approval, it is unthinkable that there should be opposition from any other quarter. We understand that a meeting of school committees is being called shortly to further the proposal, and we can only hope that all to whom tlieir children’s future means anything will get behind this effort and push.