ZEAL FOR EDUCATION

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLI, Issue XLI, 14 December 1920, Page 3

ZEAL FOR EDUCATION

% ' —: * FINANCIAL AID IN UNITED

STATES

REVELATION TO VISITORS

In the course of visits-to many schools and colleges in the United States, Hon. George Fowlds, ex-Minister of Education, who returned to Auckland on the R.M.S. Niagara," found many interesting points of comparison with the educational system of New Zealand (the Auckland Star reports). In particular he found extensive development in

America of the vocational-side of education. "The standard of education throughout the country," he said, "is pretty high, but it varies greatly from S r tate to State and from city to city. Generally speaking I had a feeling that the vocational and technical side of education was being developed at the expense of the cultural side, and thatws a fault which I hope we shall avoid inrfew .Zealand". There is room in our country for a considerable development of education, but there is a possibility of our . new-found zeal for science obscuring our appreciation of the old-fashioned "humanities." Mi' Fowlds found that the high schools in the United Stated gave a diversified curriculum, some giving instruction similar to our technical schools and colleges, and at the same time emphasising the literary and classical side of school work. Nearly'all the Universities he visited were overcrowded and were soon to" be enlarged. The money spent on education, particularly higher education, in some of the cities and States was quite a revelation to the New Zealand visitor. The number of students proportionally in the high' schools and Universities he believed to be much higher than in New Zealand.