The Marlborough Express PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. SATURDAY, JANUARY 5, 1907. THE "CRAMMING" EVIL.

Marlborough Express, Volume XL, Issue 4, 5 January 1907, Page 2

The Marlborough Express PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. SATURDAY, JANUARY 5, 1907. THE "CRAMMING" EVIL.

- The Edifcattonal Conference; at Christchurch will do good service if it succeed in checking even in a small degree the cramming process in the primary schools. Ths motion on the subject, in its original form, recommending the abolition of scholarship examinations, was of course, too drastic, but the amending phrases, which were adopted, seem to cover the ground. It is not the competitive principle itself that is objectionable, so much as the means taken to carry it into operation. Without some sort of competition the awarding of scholarships must cease, '. but the practice should be as far a's possible divested of characteristics which at present make it an eviL It is riot the power of absorbing a quantity of knowledge, but the capacity for assimilating a reasonable amount, that should be taken as jthe standard .of efficiency, and the necessary tests are susceptible of application without having recourse to those special " methods of coaching and preparation " which create a false proficiency, which is quite ephemeral, j while they often sow the seeds of painful, and sometimes fatal, maladies. It is a healthy sign of the times, or rather a sign of healthy times, to find the question .so earnestly, and even enthusiastically, taken in hand by the I members of the teaching profession, who, in this matter ; stand, in very truth, in loco parentis. The folly and tragedy of the old system need never have become obtrusive if: the parents had been mindful of their duty. The experience of two generations should have made it quite clear that our national system of education is not thorough because it attempts. to accomplish too much. In trying to convert the young of. the nation into a body of erudite scholars, we have merely succeeded in turning out a fewprodigies, many ill- and half-informed boys and girls, and a crowd of dunces. This must be patent to all whose business makes something more than a cursory observance of the school results necessary.

The schools can never be expected to perform their proper functions until we have—and here we mean the parents—^agreed that it is better to teach a little thoroughly than a great deal with perfunctoriness. The school, and especially the primary school, cannot, in the very nature of things, make its pupils "educated"; the utmost that we should expect from it is that it should provide the children with a golden key to open the cabinets of the world's knowledge. Our practice in the past, unconsciously for the most part no doubt, has been to ignore the key, and- to endeavour to make each child fill up for itself a little box of learning that should suffice for all | time. Upon what other hypothesis may we account for the eagerness with which the average parent gets his children pushed on at school, arid the neglect which he manifests in the matter of continuation classes or personal promotion of after studies? In an age when "education" is universal culture is rare as, or rarer than, it ever was. It is perhaps because they recognisethat thenow extant scheme of instruction has failed, that the members'of the teaching profession (whose interests are vitally bound up with its success) are taking up the role that the parent and the general taxpayer ought to have assumed long ago, though we prefer to think that they are actuated by loftier motives. On the whole we have reason to be proud of our national teaching staff. It is about the worst paid of any'of the professional bodies, while the nature of its duties transcends in importance that of all others. It is harassed and hampered in a variety of ways, and is chronically misjudged. When the teachers advqvate an ampler syllabus and the adoption of more rigorous measures for compelling the full attendance of all children of school age, they are accused of professional self-seeking, and when they (as most of them do). protest against an overloaded curriculum they are vaguely charged with indolence. In their present crusade they will, we hope and anticipate, have "the sympathy and support of all.