EDUCATIONAL PROBLEMS

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 13050, 15 December 1905, Page 4

EDUCATIONAL PROBLEMS

The annual report of the headmaster of the Auckland Grammar School refers incidentally to two of the multifarious educational problems: the character of commercial education and the advisability of home-work. As to the former, Mr. Tibbs defends the study of Latin by boys who are destined for trade on the very intelligible ground that in commerce, as in every other profession, the foundation of a great career rests on a sound literary and scientific education.'' The idea, of making commercial studies " educative rather than technical" is entirely consistent with the place, of a Grammar School in our educational system; and its development . and results will be watched with interest-by all who are interested in educational matters. We certainly do not want ell our schools to be "technical;" the point aimed at is that the practical and technical necessities of modern commercial and industrial life shall be fully recognised and provided for by the educational authorities, and that those who profess to be and call themselves educationalists shall not foolishly imagine that 'the principal end of men is to construe from dead authors and stammer among forgotten tongues. As for home lessons, we suppose Mr. Tibbs will admit that there is no unanimous consensus of expert opinion in favour of placing great value upon them. It is quite possible that in the reaction against the abject subjugation of youth to the home lessons once so freely and so carelessly imposed by teachers who never took a bird's-eye view of the lives of their scholars, the public is a little inclined to overlook some latent virtue in home lessons. But if children are to apply themselves with assiduity for from ion" to six hours daily to mental exercises and also to have that physical training without which very few of them will be very much good in after life, either to themselves or to anybody else, they must not be loaded down during their leisure with often more than burdensome tasks. The home lesson may have its uses, but it has also its-abuses, and it is certainly because of the dominant feeling of the adult generation that there was little good in it and much uncalled for hardship that so little systematic effort is made to enforce it upon the growing generation.