DRAWING IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 8964, 31 January 1888, Page 3

DRAWING IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS.

TO THE EDITOK. Sib, — your issue of the 26fch instant, commenting on drawing, you say, " From the remarks of some teachers, it would appear that they view with alarm the drawing indicated for the upper standards, and would gladly consign it to the rank of optional subjects." I think you have to some extent mistaken their ideas on the matter. While they wish to see drawing maintain a place in the syllabus, the general desire is, I am given to understand, to remove it from the " pass" subjects and place it among those termed "class" subjects. This, perhaps, requires a little explanation. By "pass" subjects, teachers and inspectors understand those branches of instruction which pupils must master thoroughly, in order to obtain a " pass " for the standard certificate, while "class" subjects are those, in which the class as a whole, and not individuals specially, are expected to show a fair proficiency. And the reason for this is very obvious. Every child of average intelligence in regular attendance at school, can be taught to read with* case, fluency, and expression ; to write legibly; to work arithmetical problems with accuracy ; and to master the elements of geography, history, etc. Even those who are in some degree irregular in their attendance can be made to pass fairly in these subjects. With drawing it is different, and most especially so in its higher branches : what you have indicated as drawing from a model, and instrumental work in the shape of simple geometrical figures, and further on " elementary projection, elevations, plans, and sections." If the children of our schools were all regular in their attendance throughout the year, if we were sure that the pupils of the first, second, third standards, and so on, of last year will be (in the same school) the pupils of the second, third, fourth standards, and so on, of this year, your argument respecting progressive development would hold good, and more than half the difficulties in teaching drawing, or, indeed, of any other subject, would be at once removed. But the fact is the children of our primary schools arc, to a large extent, irregular in their attendance, and consequently frequently are absent from certain " lessons in a series, and on their return to their classes find their school mates engaged in work which they find it impossible to follow. The teacher cannot, for want of time, repeat the omitted lessons, and the result must be that such pupils fail to obtain individual passes. The inspector, who knows his business, sees at once that the class has been well taught, that the teacher has done his work intelligently and well, and he immediately proceeds to look for a cause for the failure of certain individuals. The attendance roll reveals the fact of their absence, and the teacher is exonerated from the least shadow of blame. If drawing be continued in the list of pass subjects, these failures will, however, diminish the number of passes, and although the inspector does not blame the teacher, probably the school committee will, and parents certainly will hold the teacher responsible. Three years ago, one of the teachers in the Wellesley-strcet School passed all her pupils bub one, and the mother of that boy demanded most indignantly " Why her boy had been the only one that failed to pass?" She was hardly satisfied when the attendance book revealed the fact that he had been in attendance exactly one-half of the school year, and, I believe", withdrew the boy from the school. Again, there are a few children who would never make an appreciable progress in drawing, while they do well enough in other subjects, and it would be very unfair to keep them back because of their inability to pass in a subject which they find it impossible to master. In my opinion, the teachers of our primary schools are continually anxious to make their work practical, indeed, more perhaps than committees and Boards of Education would allow them ; and coming, as the majority of them do, from the most intelligent section of the community, thennatural faculties sharpened by education and training, and with a thorough and accurate knowledge of what is possible and within their powers and opportunities, 1 venture to assert that as a body they are

the best guides the Education Department can turn to in forming a syllabus for public school instruction. The object of the late conference at Nelson was not to lesson the amount cf work to bo done in the schools, but to make it more thorough, to wrest from it its superficial character, to enable the tcacher to educate as well as teach his pupils, to make thinking men and women of them, and not mere depositaries of so many facts. Let parents only realise this—that regularity of attendance means education, while the want of it allows of instruction only, and the standard of intelligence will be at once raised throughout the country. Schoolmasters will then bo the last to complain of the syllabus.—lam, &c., Henry WouTin.Nir.ro>-.

GOLD VERSUS GUM. TO THE EDITOR.

Sir,—Allow me to thank you, and I might with truth say in the name of all gumdiggers, with being the first paper in Auckland to acknowledge the greatest and most useful calling in the Auckland province. The greatest, because the community that composes it are independent and self-supporting, while helping to suptort thousands of others; and greatest, because it does not cry to a wornout Government for protection and assistance. Ib circulates more hard cash—no promissory notes with gumdiggers—than any one trade in Auckland. It is also greatest because the least envied and most reviled, for who has a, good word for a gumdigger ? I give honour now, because it is due ; but if clear-headed " Golonus"— he has admirers even in low gumdiggers— would only condescend to take our cause in hand, he would earn and have the gratitude of thousands of his fellowmen. Our song is the same that somebody else sung, " Man wants but little hero below, nor wants that little long." All we ask our enemies is to lock no Government lands up, and keep that monstrosity, £1 poll-tax, oil us. It is a crying shame and disgrace to those who are trying to make that law. While the Auckland commercial men are crying out for protection for local industries, methinks it sounds ' strange, very strange, and I wonder if I have the proper meaning of local industries, whether kauri gum and its array of free lancers are so far out of the pale of civilisation as to be beyond all recognition ? What is their definition of local industry I take their definition to be self, self, and nothing more. To tax gumdiggers means taxing some of the poorest and most honest in the country ; in other words, those that are too proud to beg and too honest to steal.—l am, &c., A Whangarei Bee.