EDUCATION BY MAIL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18813, 13 September 1924, Page 10

EDUCATION BY MAIL.

All concerned are to be congratulated on the success so far achieved by the correspondence classes instituted in 1922 by the Education Department. They were designed to give education to children in very remote districts, and mean, as the report of the Minister aptly expresses the fact, (t a distinct advance from no education at all to an education and an association with the outside world that cannot fail to have a beneficial influence on the children and bring hope and encouragement to the parents." That is certainly a very real gain. There aro many families so situated that their children cannot possibly attend even a Grade 0 school with from three to eight pupils under an untrained and uncertificated teacher. At the close of last year about 450 children wero receiving their primary education under this scheme. The enrolments now total over ,000. It is a comparatively inexpensive scheme —a staff of six teachers cmployed at the Education Department's head offico in Wellington sends out a weekly or fortnightly quota of lessons with instructions for the guidance of parents or others supervising the pupils' work —but if it cost more than it does there could be no reasonable objection. The country cannot afford to have even a small number of its children uneducated, and a duty is owed to those who, liko lighthouse-keepers and back-blocks farmers, live of necessity far away from ordinary educational privileges. It is possible to be too enthusiastic in the system's praise., however. It is not the best or even the most natural method of imparting education, albeit the Minister can sincerely assert that in many cases it has been found that the correspondence pupil has made better progress than the child attending school. A generalisation based on that experience may easily carry the truth unreasonably far. It would ignore tho undoubtedly largo part played in education by the social factor; tho living voice, the personal intimacy between teacher and pupil, and, above all, the socialising contact of a school group working and playing together for hours during most days of many years, all do much to sharpen the mind and mould the character of the scholar set in an actual class. Strictly speaking, these "correspondence classes" are not classes at all, but deans of helping children

when and where no classes can bo gathered. For the ; back-blocks families, destined to bo reached eventually by the spreading tide of closer settlement, this provision i 3 a temporary and a dwindling necessity, and should bo displaced at the earliest possible moment by more normal means. The danger especially attaching to the scheme is tho temptation to use it beyond legitimate ueed. The Minister's assurance that this risk is being watched is welcome. For lighthouso-koepers and others similarly isolated the provision should remain. It should be employed to teach crippled children even in the town, wherever they aro precluded from school attendance. Children in hospital have now good teaching provided— an excellent undertaking. Why should not the permanently sickly ones here and there in private homes in town and country be given similar help 1 So useful an idea as the correspondence class should be applied with safeguards, that it be not abused, and with thoroughness, that it may produce good wherever it may be legitimately and profitably put into practice.