HEADMASTER RETURNS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19859, 1 February 1928, Page 12

HEADMASTER RETURNS.

MR. C. H. BROAD'S TOUR. SYSTEMS OF EDUCATION. ENGLAND AND AMERICA. [BY TELEGRAPH. —OWN CORRESPONDENT.] NELSON, Tuesday. Mr. C. H. Broad, principal of Nelson College, returned homq to-day from a visit to Britain, the Continent and America. ' Mr. Broad found old boys of Nelson College in many places, especially London. He met there Mr. Joynt, exhcadmaster of the college, who is now representing the New Zealand University, Mr. K. Saxon, a teacher in one of the Cambridge County schools, Sir Ernest Rutherford and also two very old old •boys. They were brothers, sons of Dr. Coleman, who came to Nelson many years ago. These two men had kept up their connection with the college ever since. They left it about 40 years- ago. Although the study of education was not one of the objects of his trip, Mr. Broad visited Winchester, Eton and Rugby. One thing that struck him forcibly was the magnificent playing grounds. ISo New Zealand school had anything to compare with them. The people of America were beginning to realise that there must be something wrong with their system of education and it was obvious that the trouble lay in the lack of school spirit. The United States had spent millions'in providing the best possible equipment and had neglected the schools' chief objects—the formation of character. The widespread perjury in the Law Courts, increasing juvenile crime and other forms of corruption that permeated America to-day had led many to ask if it was not the education system tnat was to blame. Mr. Broad said it was hard for an Englishman to understand the attitude of the ordinary American toward perjury and bribery. He just laughed and seemed to consider it rather a joke. Yet New Zealand sent teachers to America for training. It was to England that they should go in order to learn something of the system that turned out such a fine stamp of youth from the public schools. The Dalton system of teaching, which was tried a year or two ago in the secondary schools throughout the Dominion, was now practically dead in England.