LECTURE ON EDUCATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16123, 11 January 1916, Page 10

LECTURE ON EDUCATION.

Before an audience largely composed of school teachers and other people interested m education which crowded the little Theosophical Rzll in Upper Queen Street, 31.. L. ■)' Leadbeater, of the Theosophical Society, H.P.B. Lodge, delivered an address on "Educational Methods" Urt night. The lecturer expounded the principle that the object of ideal education 3 to draw out the faculties and capabilities of the scholar rather than to cram his I mind with ill-digested and unrelated facts as in schools of the Gradgrind tvpe In , these days of public libraries and handv : encyclopaedias there was no need to burden the memory with mere facts. Facing the demands of the community, there must , be a compromise between the requirements of the Government, the public, and the J idealist. The needs of the child must be j viewed as a sacred trust. His emotions and faults must be studied, and his course of education be directed accordingly. The 'teacher should regard his function in work- , ing out the instruction of the child's mind las a special act of service to God, and .should endeavour to make the scholar a 'healthy and honourable citizen—one who when he grew up, would be emphatically land essentially a gentleman. The remainder of the lecture was devoted to showing how this should be accomplished, , primarily by surrounding tho child with jan atmosphere of love. _______________