CHILDREN MASTERS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 41, 17 January 1929, Page 6

CHILDREN MASTERS.

IN AMERICAN SCHOOLS. “STANDARD VERY POOR,” DUNEDIN, Jan. 16. “The prevailing idea in America is that New York is the centre of the world. One gathered that every vital aspect of the world’s advancement hovered about it,” said Miss M. McFarlane, of Dunedin, who has returned from a world tour. Miss McFarlane remarked on the great ignorance of Americans regarding New Zealand, and said she blamed the American education system. “I found the standard of education in the United States to be very poor,” she said. “I have a cousin there ivho has passed an examination equivalent to our matriculation, and imagine my surprise when, just before my departure for Glasgow from New York, she asked me if Scotland had a king! Another question asked by her was : “Was New Zealand in the Great War?” At first I thought she was joking, but not a bit of it. History in that country is simply the history of the United States, and the result is that they are becoming a self-satisfied race. They know all about their own presidents and their civil war, but that’s about all.

“Then, again, the schools seem to be quite undisciplined, the pupils being allowed to choose the subjects they fancy. Now they are reaching the stago where they abuse their freedom to such an extent that it is a matter of the children striving to run their parents rather than vice versa. Nowhere, not even in the British Isles, have I seen schools equal to our own State Schools.”