THE COUNTRY SCHOOL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20071, 8 October 1928, Page 8

THE COUNTRY SCHOOL.

Suggestions have been made by a Canterbury educationist for organising the work of the schools in rural districts to make them serve better the needs of the children, and act as a greater social force in the community generally. The central idea is good enough to deserve consideration. It can be accepted for the purpose without endorsing everything said by way of preamble about the drabness of life in the country. It is different from town life certainly, but everyone will not agree that tho differences are wholly to its disadvantage. Paved streets, shop windows, and a place of public amusement available every night in the week are not, after all, absolutely essential to human happiness Those old enough to remember when "such pleasures and amusements as are found in our towns" were not to bo found in such profusion as they are now, are not unanimous that life has been made, fundamentally, so very much happier by the change. Besides, the dullness attributed to oountry life is not so characteristic of it nowadays when better means of communication and the spread of amusements havo transformed almost all except the districts most remote from the centres of population. But even if the case is not so bad as suggested, there is merit in the suggestion that the school should be a social centre for the community. Such an idea is associated with the system of consolidation. As it is extended, with wider experience of its working, its social possibilities may be utilised more fully. Apart from consolida tion the school can, and often docs, play its part in the community. Its power in this way depends largel" on the personality and the volun tary efforts of the teacher or teachers. What is imagined, no doubt, is an extension of this influ once, with an organisation which would not leave the onus on the teaching staff. Theie is much to be said for the suggestion. Properly carried out, it should bo beneficial to the school and the community, broadening the usefulness of tho one, giving a new interest and pleasure to the other.