OVER-STUDY.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXIX, Issue 115, 18 May 1906, Page 4

OVER-STUDY.

DR. TRUBY KING'S CRITICISM

DIVERSE OPINIONS

Mr P. Goyen (Chief Inspector of Schools, Otago), interviewed on the subject of 1> Tniby King's lecture, said—"As a man of science Dr King knows how mistaken may be the generalisation that is based upon insufficient data, and how fallacious it may bo to found a conclusion upon the observation of a few cases out ol thousands The cases he cites in support ol Ids condemnation of our education system are unfortunately too true, but to my thinking they do not establish his thesis. They certainly show that of many hundreds of scholarship winners, two arc now inmates ol the asylum, but they do not, 1 think, p?ove a casual connection between on. education system and the untmtmi.Ue condition of the inmates. The cases, in nuestion are, L think, well known, MroSwhat i know of the temperampnts and circumstances ot tne P^nts, I may hazard the «"jps™ that the effective causes ol tlicn lunacy, are discoverable outside our education system. , , «It would be idle, for me, * liel ioac already condemned certain lea tv ics of that system, to pretend t t >t *s nnrfect but just as 1 am not piopaicij to condemn football because to a small propmSn of the players come broken limbs and broken health, so I am not Spared t 0 condemn our system because a small fraction per cent of those educated under it ultimately become disabled Accidents n the football field are due to causes that are obvious to the onlookers but failure of the brain may be due to causes that are so deep-seated in inheritance as to elude our ken, and that are made openly operative oi.K by the circumstances in which tut, brain has to work. In a highly organised system of education one must discriminate between cause and occasion. Anyhow, an adequate diagnosis ot all sucn causes 'seems to me to require that we should take into account many things besides our system of education -as for example home and social environment and heredity with all its powers and tendencies. 1 « The words of Dr King ought, however, to be a warning to parencs ot highly-strung, eager-minded, amlntio«8 ychildren, whose physique is no strong enough to. bear the stiainot competitive examinations. In most if not in all, cases of breakdown the espon^bility lies, I believe muci more with the parents than with the schools, and the system of educat on. In the case of the average child,tleie need be no alarm, for he will clo just Xt he must and no more ftaurf pas. muster in his class. He needs the spur, not the curb. As I read Di KhigF s aldress, the education given in mi Schools is one of unmitigated <jjm. I do not agree, nor do my colleagues. We could not so characterise the work done even in the worst of th©m- nffl Dr Ogston, District Health Officei. .aid--" h have read the report of whatDr Truby King spoke and I auite agree with him. Ihe whole system is cramming to pass examinations, and not assimilating knowledge to be used in after life. Iheieroie, the system leads to waste of energy and no good result. I speak of what 1 know Many young students have co me To me in their University course and I have seen the evil effects ot cramming. I take our system to be cramming without education. At HonTthly are abolishing the pass sys em, because they find »J 'iteloas.' "In my student days, the schoolmaster who taught a class earned on the clever boys as far as they could g<£ and the stupid Wjiad to be content with the three R's, or at any rate with such education as would be ikely to be useful to them, and .the youngster*-h.ad not to face examinations at all until they went to the University. Under that system the schoolmaster's time was left free to carry the clever, boys to the highe.b point of proficiency. Here in New gealand we practical y compel the schoolmaster to keep back his bight pupils to the pace ot the stupid ones. That is educating downwards, and I sa y it is wrong from the point of view of Betting the best result. It is also wrong in that the stupid boys are pushed on to the very limit ot then mental powers, an das a consequence the weaker brains give way. lms is a "waste to the State. It is also an expense, for somebody has to keep the derelicts, and another point ot ex-, pbnse is that our High Schools aie over-crowded. . . r <'As regards our primary schools, 1 have had to advise parents to take their children from school, because they wore being over-stimulated by examinations. The work of our primary and secondary schools is unscientific and burdensome. It is nonsense to give scholarships to pupils who gain only 50 per cent of the attainable marks. It is also a waste of time to push on such pupils. Nature has not meant such children to cram. I am aware that the schoolmasters think on the subjects as we doctors do—that it would be far wiser to train pupils iust to the extent of their capacity, and let the dull ones stop when they have absorbed as much learning as they can. Treated in that way the boys who are not smart at examination work would often slime at something else, if not pressed, on to a breakdown. They would get a lair chance. Some of them would make good business men if set that way, instead of being forced into the wrong groove. I have in my mind a colleague of my own who had to confess to being a failure at class work. He went up for examination at the same time as myself, and had to rely on crimping to scrape through. His people had the good sense to see the deficiency, and they put him into a commercial house, and as a young man he was able to return from Ceylon with a tortune. That man, if compelled to go through with his University studies, would probably have lost heart and become a failure.

"Another case comes to my memory of a man who could pass examinations without any trouble at all, but when he went to apply his knowledge by taking to the teaching line, he proved no good, and shaped so badly that his pupils derided him and pelted him with snow-balls. He left the teaching and became one of the smartest literary men in London. Luckily he found out in time his true vocation. Think, too, of the pitiable case of William Smith. He and I were at College together. He was the most brilliant student of his year. Ho won a lot of scholarships, went in for the Church, became a professor at Aberdeen, and published in the "Encyclopedia Britannica" an article that was regarded as heretical. After that he went to Cambridge. As a lecturer he was the most brilliant Oriental scholar of his day. You have heard of his sad end— he died worn out at middle age. His brother, another clover man, died from the same cause before he got his degree."