THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1908. UNIFORM SCHOOL-BOOKS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13673, 14 February 1908, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1908. UNIFORM SCHOOL-BOOKS.

The reports upon the subject of uniform school books which have been submitted to the Christchurch Board of Education by no means dispose of this vexed question. The inspectors of the Board, dealing with reading books, and the Appointments Committee, dealing with text books generally, agree in emphatically denouncing the uniform system and in maintaining that such an innovation would neither be cheap nor advantageous nor in the interest of education. But the reports are altogether too. sweeping to be convincing. They practically ignore the real and genuine grievance which is behind the demand for the uniform system, for very few will accept the casual conclusion of the Christchurch inspectors that " they could not bring themselves to believe that the people of New Zealand were so povertystricken that they need stand appalled at the prospect of spending a few extra shillings per year in procuring a reasonable variety of reading material for use in the public schools," and because considerable sums are spent yearly ''in recreation and alleged amusement" is no reason whatever why parents should be mulct in book-money at every captious whim of those in petty authority. The fact is—and no reports can discount a fact familiar to parents who have children attending the public schools of the Dominion, and to every Other citizen who interests himself in the social conditions of his country—that the frequent and uncalled-for changes in school books constitute a heavy and irritating tax. Not only reading books, but other text books are continually changed for no apparent reason and replaced by books not perceptibly better. This evil has grown to such an extent that, it has awakened universal antagonism and has given rise to the agitation for the uniform system so obnoxious to those who are chiefly responsible for the evil itself. Naturally, they defend the existing method, for to admit any weakness in it would appear to them as a confession of culpability. So that it is not to inspectors, or to those who see through their glasses, that we must look for reform, but to those representatives of the parents and of the public who have no pedantic prejudices, and who may consequently be expected to take steps to meet the legitimate and reasonable demands of bookbuying parents.

Among the reasons put forward at Christchurch against' a uniform system are that it would destroy the individuality of the teacher, that it would ignore the special needs of particular localities, and that it would not impart variety to the mental fare of. children. But does anybody imagine that the individuality of a true teacher depends upon his text book or upon his reading-book, provided it is intelligently chosen? And are parents to pay just because a teacher happens to see a reader or a text book Which excites his passing approval? And are there any such special needs in our New Zealand communities as to justify the changing of books haphazardly? And how is "variety" in question when a child is periodically changing its school standard? To assert that in every place where the uniform system has been tried, as in Queensland and Ontario, it has had the effect of disheartening teachers and retarding- genuine progress, is a purely ex parte statement for which there is no substantiating evidence. What is not an ex parte statement, but an assertion,of which the truth can be investigated by every man or woman of ordinary intelligence, is that in many cases our present methods are productive of considerable hardship and that without any compensating results. It is easy to say that in some distant countries where the uniform system has come in "the system of education had become hidebound and wooden, the profession of teaching had fallen into , disrepute, the teachers had become narrow in their outlook, and in the text book department there had not been wanting in some cases hints of political jobbery." Thus the Appointments Committee! And we are actually asked to believe that all these evils arise in countries which- take awax from the minor

educational authorities the power to tell school children any morning that there will be a change of books involving an outlay of a shilling or a 'pound per head. We ; fancy that if the Queensland or the Ontario educationalists happen to hear that they have been thus held up to New Zealanders as "frightful examples*' they will "not be persuaded of the clearness of our New Zealand vision.

We are not concerned with a defence of the uniform system for it has doubtless a weak side as well as a strong one, and it tends towards a centralisation with which we have ho sympathy. But when provincial and local authorities fail in their . duties they must expect, in the Twentieth. Century, to encounter that appeal to Caesar which Caesar loves to hear. And ;if Education Boards refuse of their own initiative to. rectify a notorious abuse and to restrain that habit of change which has no real justification, and which imposes an unnecessary burden upon parents, they cannot logically complain if the reform is forced by public opinion through Departmental control. One has only to see some of the books which are hurried like tourists through our public schools all paid for by parents—to realise that they have often absolutely no intrinsic merit, and are rarely deserving of permanent acceptance. What with editions and re-editions, new books and altered books, there is a constant claim upon the parental purse, care which is so belittled by the Christchurch inspectors. Yet everybody must know that the best citizens in the community, those who are rearing families to the best of their ability and to the utmost of the opportunities open to them, can frequently not afford to waste pounds or even shillings upon nonsensical and result-less changes. It is a pedantic lack of sympathy with those deserving and self-re-specting -people who have to earn their money by hard work, and to whom every few shillings means a day's labouring, which has been the cause of the whole trouble. Nor is any such sympathy evident in the reports we have been dealing with, though we venture to believe that it will be found very widely spread among the teachers themselves, as it certainly is among members of the school committees.