THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1922. NEW WAYS IN EDUCATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18211, 3 October 1922, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1922. NEW WAYS IN EDUCATION.

Education in New Zealand is marked down for changes. The ceremony held yesterday, at which the first junior high school was opened, is but symptomatic of the unanimity of expert opinion on the need for an alteration in the system. The primary education policy has stood for the past 50 years without material change. New methods have been adopted from time time, various alterations have been effected, but in essentials the system has remained the same. Tn agreeing that changes must now be made, there is no need to support the case by attacking the primary education of the past. The schools may not have been perfect, but today, on the threshold of developments, it may be acknowledged that patient and thorough work was done within the limits of the primary school syllabus. It was not, however, designed in the first instance as a preparation for a secondary course. When the doors of the secondary schools were thrown wide, when the headmasters of those schools began to testify that there was not a smooth graduation, but a gap, between the two stages of education, eventual alterations became inevitable. Now, after complete consultation and intensive discussion, new departures are at hand. It is particularly encouraging in these circumstances that the Dominion is not being presented with a cut and dried scheme. The Minister emphasises that it is tentative and experimental, that it is to be judged by its results, and especially that it is to be adapted to the particular needs of the Dominion. • New Zealand can profit by the experiences of other countries, but will profit most by selecting and assimilating the best features of their systems ratlaer than by swallowing them whole.

The junior high school has been planned as a halfway house between the primary and secondary stages. It has other functions also. The selective process will, it is expected, be applied, so that future training, after it has completed its work, will be on the lines best suited to the needs of the pupil. One of the aims of the system is vocational selection, if not necessarily intensive vocational training. Here several ideals may need to be examined. In the post-primary system of the United States there exist " shop schools " where a certain degree of technical training is definitely provided. A note of caution has been sounded in this matter by educationists of experience. On the purely technical side it has been pointed out that the American model would not be entirely suitable. The apprenticeship system is less common relatively in the United States than in New Zealand. Therefore an American boy desiring to enter a skilled trade may with advantage remain at school until 18 years of age, and benefit by technical training. In New Zealand it is practically certain that the compulsory school age will become 15 years. The legal minimum will certainly remain the practical maximum in a large number of cases. Therefore a boy who is destined to leave school at 15 should surely be trained to that age on cultural lines rather than vocational. If destined to become a tradesman, he will enter upon his apprenticeship with a fuller mental equipment than if his general j development had been subordinated I to strictly technical training. If he is bound for a secondary school, a ! trade will not be his objective. I There/ore, manual training, beyond j the degree calculated to ensure a | certain dexterity and handiness, will i be wasted. The junior high schools, [ on present indications, are to dis-

cover aptitudes rather than develop them. It is to be hoped chat this will remain the ideal. If they rescue the pupil from a blind alleyoccupation, if they turn him toward the broad highway of a definite career, they need not push him too far along it. If they teach him to walk it with open eyes they will have done well by him. Even for the pupil whose schooling ends with them, the junior high schools need not be made junior technical schools. Too much can be sacrificed in the worship of the god " efficiency." Besides being designed to supplement the primary course, and to bridge the gap between it and the secondary school, the junior high schools have claimed for tham another quality. It is hoped they will make possible a regular and uninterrupted progress by the pupil. It has been directly stated that the new system will enable the brightest children to make their own pace, and save them from having to wait while those less apt catch up with them. The educationist claims this as a valuable feature, and to the lay mind also it appeals as such. To keep two pupils of unequal capacity working side by side at the same tasks is • good for neither. The brighter grows impatient or lazy, the duller may become discouraged. It is proposed to let the more talented forge ahead, and to help and encourage the other, who may easily respond and brighten under tho stimulus. Discretion is needed here, however. Nothing but good can come, from the effort to encourage the pupil who faces difficulties. In the case of the ready learner, on the other hand, it will be necessary to gauge carefully hiß mental calibre, to discover whether he is the fortunate possessor of exceptional ability or whether ho is an instance of average capacity developing precociously. No good, but certain harm would result from an indiscreet enthusiast utilising the proposed facilities to make his school a mental forcing house. Because possibledangers can be detected does not mean, however, that the new scheme should not be launched. The old system has been pronounced obsolete. The country has outgrown it. Changes must come, and difficulties; must be faced. Wisdom will grow from experience. So long as the educational authorities view the task with open minds, so long as they build according to revealed needs, they should produce a system incorporating all the good features derivable from other countries, adapted to the peculiar needs of New Zealand. Changes may be contemplated with reluctance, but granted they are changes to better things, the time has come when the Dominion must make the venture.