EDUCATION

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXIX, Issue LXIX, 28 May 1915, Page 2

EDUCATION

CHARACTER THE CHIEF RESULT.

Judee William Taft, professor in the W-School of Yale University and exof the United. States, said some notable things at an Educational Convention m Cincinnati.

Education that does not. help to form character misses the chief object ot it for citizenship, and. I have * theory that you need a broad foundation of thorough primary education for everyone, whether he is going to be a farmer a lawyer, a mechanic! or a minister," he said.

Among the youths m the common schools, in the private schools, in the secondary schools, and in the colleges— as every one of you knows—you find lack of respect for authority—a lack of •selt-disciphne—a lack of courtesy and politeness. What does a lack of* courtesy and politeness mean? Why it means that the boy or girl has not Veen taught the democratic principles of respecting the rights of others.

When a pupil is abrupt and rough •and does not give the teacher the respect the teacher ought to have, he simply has failed to learn the proper principles of democratic citizenship. A •man who is always dwelling, on what somebody ought to render him and not on what he owes somebody else, is started wrong. Discipline is what we need in this generation. . It is in that we are lacking.

In these luxurious days the parents delegate to somebody else the discipline of the family and *do not have the strength of character to see that the boys and girls have the proper respect —Urst, tor their parents; second, for tlie opportunities they have in goin°•to school and for the; necessity for im•proving them; and, third, they do not nave the self-restraint that they should show m their bearing to the entire world.

A liav® a brother who is in your craft He is the headmaster of a school and he meets with headmasters. At one of the headmasters' meetings *?£ °L th e? a got KP to illustrate the difficulties he was laboring under and read a letter that he had from a mother:

'.' ! De. ar Sir,—Here is our Willie. Willie is a noble boy. He has been a little lax in his studies. He is impetuous and sometimes breaks rules, but he is a noble boy. Do not be severe with him. Do j_o't punish him. We have never been severe with him or punished him at home, except in selfdefence.' "