HOMEWORK.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19762, 8 October 1927, Page 14

HOMEWORK.

Sir,—The letters on homework have interested me considerably. When I attended primary school, over three years ago, I had my share of homework to do. I would like to say that, although I found homework somewhat irksome at times, especially if there was a cowboy picture showing in the everting, it was my greatest help in examination time. If one were to enter a schoolroom to-day one would find those pupils who do their homework at the top of the class, while those who, bluntly speaking, are too lazy to do it, wonld nearly always be found at the bottom of the class. Most parents like to see their children pass their examinations with honours. I am of opinion that the method is learned during school hours and is afterwards put into practice in doing homework. Then why do away with homework, as some suggest ? It is one of the best ways of attaining perfection for examinations. A.J.B. Sir, —Your correspondent, "Contented Student," would do well to consult the New Zealand Year Book, and discover that New Zealand has not such a very fine physique after aIL That is to say, the hospital population of a country, only two generations old so far as our civilisation is concerned, has risen from 46,000 in 1919 to 61.500 in 1925. "Contented Student" would also be interested in the following from Eugen Sandow, "Life is Movement," page 123: —"We have had for many years a system of education for children that has begun, and still begins at the wrong end. Indeed, education as we know it to-day has been for centuries steadily sapping and undermining the body's physical foundation by imposing mental strains for which the physical foundation of body building had "not been previously prepared. Civilisation has been ably seconded by education in the spread of disease. All mental work, it mast never be forgotten, imposes a great strain on the physical body, and in hard study as much as« from 50 to 75 per cent, of the students' vital energy may be consumed." If "Contented Student" is going to go through life sneering at the physical as "animal" he will find Mother Nature giving him some drastic punishment. He has only to suffer a breakdown through over study and he might, in all possibility, be in the sad state of "climbing trees" for himself instead of giving such advice to others. Humanist.