NORTHERN ADVOCATE DAILY With which is incorporated the NORTHERN MAIL DAILY. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1919. NEW WAY IN EDUCATION.

Northern Advocate, 26 September 1919, Page 2

NORTHERN ADVOCATE DAILY With which is incorporated the NORTHERN MAIL DAILY.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1919. NEW WAY IN EDUCATION.

for transmission through the post as a newspaper.

In '' The Play Way,'' a comparatively new and readable book on education, the author, H. Caldwell Cook, M.A., makes many an apt point. The book is as charming as it is sensible aud up-to-date. In a clever initial sentence the key to the whole book is given. He says: —"The play-way is not a bunch of contrivances for making scholarly pursuits pleasurable, but the active philosophy of making pleasurable pursuits valuable." It is a splendid intuitive summary of the facts of a revulsion from old time methods. It is also a criticism of a well-meant but incorrect reading of the new attitude, and it_is a fine declaration of the more pleasing note and attitude of the new impulse. There is, most happily, an all but unanimous approval of the more kindly and less stereotyped system of education. Advocates of the old system are not among the leaders of thought on the subject, but are primarily confined to the actual work of teaching along the old lines. Fortunately, although they arc formally attached to the dying system, they are, in spirit, if not in judgment, committed to the lovelier day of a more humane pedagogy; and when they retire from the profession there will be little difficulty in adopting in toto the plans of reform that are but waiting tho work of the builders. The second type of educationist is less easy to cope with because he nominally subscribes to everything that properly belongs to the newer note, and yet adopts the notion that tho old curriculum needs but a little less rigidity to make it not only palatable, but highly nutritious. They represent the type who would make"scholarly pursuits pleasurable," who wbuld in effect merely introduce an aroma of geniality and-helpfulness to a system inherently unsound. The most desirable reform which expresses an entirely new attitude, is from an equally new view-point. This is from the child's standpoint, not the learned professor's. Nothing is so wholehearted, so thorough, so natural, so free from stain, so earnest, as the spontaneous playing of a child; and all the most approved proposals for educational reform begin with such a frank recognition. 'Instead of marshalling tiny tots with 'barrack-like discipline, the "playway" just guides the bubbling energy of happy childhood to secure the knowledge it needs. The rigid disciplinarian of the, older method is horrified- at what he imagines must be pandemonium under such a scheme, but the successful schools on the happier lines fully justify the more joyous introductions. There is no crushing of each child's wonderful individuality, but a sympathetic study by the teacher instead. Under the now regime, whatever other qualifications the teacher may possess, he must be a lover of childhood and an instinctive psychologist. He (or more often she) will watch each child as eagerly and studiously as Burbank the horticultural expert scans his seedlings daily. There will be the closest possible sympathy between the teacher and the child, and cold talk of salaries in this connection will seem as absurd as to discourse on the marketprice of the nightingale's song. The "play-way" in education eliminates rivalry, and the reward of special ability is tho privilege of helping others, the service being tempered with the realisation that the helped can be the helper in some other branch of knowledge. The acquisition of knowledge proceeds naturally and quickly, and hard and fast time-tables are relegated to limbo. But is all this mere talk, the formalist inquires. Ho has been trained in a hard school of set lessons at set times, for set objects; and he views with amazement if not alarm innovations of (apparent) confusion where each child appears to go his own sweet way. The many experimental schools in England and elsewhere establish beyond doubt that the "play-way" is the best way; because it is a practical recognition of the sweetness and sacredness of childhood which all men gladly recognise, but which the castiron % rule of thumb method of training had well-nigh obscured.