The Marlborough Express. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 8, 1908. PRACTICAL EDUCATION.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLII, Issue 6, 8 January 1908, Page 4

The Marlborough Express. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 8, 1908. PRACTICAL EDUCATION.

It is the misfortune of the Hon. G. Reid, of Australia, to be seldom taken seriously. He •is an acknowledged wit, and his witticisms always secure the hearty laughter • and applause which is their due, but his solid, good things, uttered in more serious mood, do not secure the attention to which they are entitled. This is probably the fate of men whose chief aim upon the platform is to make their fellows laugh. Words of wisdom which fall from their lips are unheeded, ... wljlil^ their hearers are recovering from the last hearty laugh and bracing them-?' selves for the next. Yet Mr Reid "is not always the platform wit. Some-; times he says things which 'demand more than passing notice, and should not be dismissed with a laugh. For instance, speaking at a prize distribution at Wellington Colege, Parra- • matta, recently his mirth-provoking speech,—which we re-publish—was interlarded with quite a number of thoughtful utterances, which the college principals have no doubt isarefully noted. Speaking of the benefits of education to the man after he had left school,, and entered upon his daily avocation, he said: —"The great fault of the present system was that it stored the mind with a lot of facts and figures, but did not show the youth how to make the best use of his knowledge. The dux of the school may not make the best man. It was not the fact of a youth having a good education, »but» his ability^ to make practical use of that education that made the man." How often do we find the truth of tnis verified in our everyday experience ? The collegebred man is frequently a failure, while the man with only the simplest rudiments of education wins his way, to the front by sheer force of natural ability. AH honour" to him for so doing, but commiseration must be felt for the man with his head stored full of knowledge yet unable to make practical use of it. Then again how frequently is it found that the bright sharp boy, the winner of prizes at school, is the failure in after-life, while the apparently dull plodder, . who never won a prize in his school career, gains all the prizes in the serious business of life. There is undoubtedly much truth in Mr Reid's remarks under this head, but how is the remedy to be applied? It is the business of the schoolmaster to, as Mr Reid says, "stuff the boys full of learning," but whose business is it to teach them to apply it to their everyday requirements in after life? It would almost appear that the practical work of teaching trades and professions should go hand-in-hand with the imparting of theoretical knowledge. Mr Squeers, of Do-the-boys Hall, it will be remembered did something of this sort on a small scale. Happily the days of Mr Squeers have gone, but yet we have not reached perfection in our educational system. There are some colleges in Australia, notably Way's in Adelaide, where trades are taught, and business know/" ledge imparted conjointly with ordinary education, and an extension: 1' of this system would appear in some measure to meet Mr Reid's requirements. But after all much remains j with the boy himself, and how he will apply his knowledge in after life depends entirely upon his surrounding circumstances. He may "Grasp the skirts of happy chance," or he may i miss the tide which leads on to for- I tune, and spend his life in a vain i

effort to escape the shallows aAid eddies which beset him. And the common experience, of Ijife shows thAt fortune is achieved, or failure manifests itself, quite irrespective of the education which has been, bestowed upon a lad, or the want of it. We are all arbiters oi: our own destiny.