GERMANY'S SCHOOLS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLVII, Issue XLVII, 10 April 1912, Page 6

GERMANY'S SCHOOLS.

German teachers undertake to measure the mental capacities of the'boy. If he ia generally a dull pupil, he will be indexed as being betttr adapted to a trado not far removed from unskilled labour. The bright pupil, especially if he shoul-! show manual delicacy in th-3 systematic rests, to which he is subjected towards the end of his school period, would have a choice, of some fine handicraft, such as that of instrument-making, .engraving, or jewel-setting. Painstaking effort is,made ro determine the boy's inclinations, so that the great misfortune may not happen to hiih of being deprived of the joy of work, of the satisfaction in the thing done. Within the view of the Prussian school administration, and this is equally true of Bavaria, and most of the other German States, the skilled worker ought to find in his calling one of the gnat satisfactions of life—a certain artistic pride, the disposition to do his work not alone as he has been taught, but to add to it something of his own individuality, because he loves the work, and puts something of h:6 spiritual self into it. No boy is compelled" or unduly forced into the choice cf a calling. He i* handled temperamentally and sympathetically. The endeavour is made to stir the hoy's ambition. Masters and parents con fer. The parents working _:>t comnior labour always want their children to do better in life than they have done. The* readily co-operate in getting the conviction fixed in the boy's m;nd that he ought not to be an unskilled workman, that when he finishes his school work he ought not to be content to be among those at the bottom of society, doing the coarse labour of the ditch, but that he ought to choose a trade and fit himscli for one of the higher levels, where intelligence counts for something, and where wag'-s and opportunities are larger. The germ of the whele system <M" manna] training is considered by the Prussian Ministry of Commerce and Industry to be in the awakening of the boy's aspirations for a life above the ordinary. This awaktnincr is much more of a problem for the children of the unskilled or the nearly unskilled classi-.--than for those of the higher artisan class The surroundings and the tone in th • home life of ;i sunerior workman iiFUa!; v setti- the inclination of the boy to be ;i. least equal to his father.