EDUCATIONAL METHODS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22695, 6 April 1937, Page 2

EDUCATIONAL METHODS

POSITION OF NEW ZEALAND HIGH STANDARD IN AMERICA A visitor to Auckland by the Aorangi was Mrs. Graham Mann, of Melbourne, who is on her way to Australia after a six months' visit to Canada and the United States, Mrs. Mann is connected with the Victorian Federation of Mothers' Clubs. She said her stay abroad had been greatly enriched by inquiries into educational problems and methods of other countries. Among leading educationalists and teachers there was a growing conviction that education in its. highest sense must be based on the child's place in the universe. The disrupting influences in the world to-day were the outcome of untempered materialism. Compared with other countries of the world, education in Australia was on a ridiculously low scale and in New Zealand it was from the point of view of cost, relatively high. State school education in Australia for one child for one year cost about £9 lis, said Mrs. Maun. From inquiries abroad she had discovered that the United States spent £l7 a child; Scotland, £ls 10s; New Zealand, £l-3 ss; Sweden, £l3; England and Wales, £ll 10s; Germany, £lO ss; Denmark, £10; Norway, £9; Holland, £8; France, £5 10s; and Russia, £4 15s. Mrs. Mann referred to the many problems encountered in the education of country children, specially where they were in search of higher education. The country child at the age or 11 years was expected to travel long distances and at considerable expense to a high school. Faced with this proposition, parents very often decided to leave the child at the local school for a longer period than necessary. _ ~* rs ' Mann considered that country children should be permitted to travel to high schools free of charge. Facilities for education in the Lmted States were very nearly perfect. Teachers as well >as pupils were adequately provided for and the ''examination spectre" was much less formidable. Greater facilities were available for specialisation in whatever career the pupil had chosen. In the matter of physical health the schools of the United States were also greatly in advance of Australian and manv New Zealand schools, Mrs. Mann continued. Apart from medical inspections and verv efficient physical culture classes, special attention was given to the care of children's teeth. Almost every school possessed its own dental clinic. Mrs. Mann was opposed to the raising of money by local clubs in an endeavour to promote dental clinics, as this made the system little more than a charitv. She also disliked the classification svstem by which some parents paid full fees, some part fees and some' none at all. Dental clinics, she added, should be established as a srrs+em of national insurance.