THE BOYS' HIGH SCHOOL.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXIX, Issue 14610, 18 February 1908, Page 6

THE BOYS' HIGH SCHOOL.

The correspondent who writes to us criticising tho Boys' High School very pointedly may .have fallen into the common error of overestimating the value of written examinations. Before instituting a comparison between the Boys' High School and tho District High School in tho matter of examination results, we should have to bo informed rather fully of the aims and the scope of the two institutions. It may well be that the District High School made the success of its matriculation candidates its first consideration, a condition against which we have been protesting for many yoars. Tho whole tendency of secondary education in the dominion is to encourage cramming

for public examinations. The result lists published by the Education Department and the University are the only means tho public have of comparing schools, and the"consequence is that almost every school makes a special effort to make a good showing in the Civil Service, Matriculation and Junior University Scholarship examinations. The average secondary school arranges its curriculum with this end in view, bright boys are specially coached, and the general education of the classes is neglected or receives less than its fair sharo of attention. We have condemned this system on a score of occasions. and we are certainly not prepared to turn round now and condemn tho local Boys' High School on the hare evidence of the year's examination results. It may be, and we hope to learn that it is so, that the local school has been devoting itself to general education, and has abandoned tho bad old system. Unfortunately, however, we have no means of knowing what standard the work of the school really attains. Tho Board of Governors has abandoned its former practice of having the school examined throughout n*y independent examiners, and no other system of testing tho standard attained by the classes has been adopted. The headmaster himself has applauded tho Civil Service examinations and the University entrance examinations as excellent tests, but for the reasons we have stated wo entirely disagree with him, and this year, at any rate, the School would probably elect to he judged by some other standards. The letter we publish this morning demands some.reply, because if it expresses the general view of parents the school must bo suffering some loss of prestige The Board has to show that tho results are commensurate with tho expenditure, and it seems to US that some independent inspection and examination is necessary to ascertain what those results are. To our mind, it is the clear duty of tho Education Department to institute a general system of inspection for all the secondary schools of tho dominion. Until that is done the public will continue to judge them by the results of .the open examinations, the schools will make it their aim to make a good display in those examinations, and secondary education, which has already suffered great injury from this cause, will remain in its present narrow and unhealthy groove.