ROUND THE CORNERS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 860, 24 August 1888, Page 17

ROUND THE CORNERS.

Something more has to be said upon the Stats school system. I, for one, shall not let it drift into oblivion. To maintain the st&tus quo ante is by no means my desire. At the same time, when people pose as iconoclasts, it may well be demanded of them to build up as well as break down. Reformers may not be classed as such unless thsy are prepared to indicate where and how reforms may be accomplished. This State school system, in its aspect of character forming in the young, has been more than a mere newspaper matter to me. Its relation is that of a sacred duty that may not be shirked and must be done. The degradation into which so many of the children of the larger towns of New Zealand have fallen is a standing reproach to those who have undertaken to educate youth up to a reasonably high standard. Whilst there is no question whatever about the primary duty falling upon parents, that home culture is an almost indispensable essential, yet, lacking that, much might be done in providing a substitute by modifying and amending the State system in certain directions. This is also demanded in the interests of a more economical administration of State education. I believe quite a majority of colonists are in favour of this, and, what is more, I am sure that the State system would gain immensely in efficiency if it were subjected to a thorough and searching revision,

To begin, I would make it a State system in. deed, by establishing a supremo Ministerial head under whom inspectors and sub-inspectors would work throughout the Colony, with tribunals of advice and investigation at all the principal centres, not Education Boards but tribunals of which all resident magistrates should be members with snitable coadjutors appointed by Government. Immediately under the Ministerial head would be the InspectorGeneral of School's department, from which all teaching apppointments would issue. Before local tribunals would be brought all complain s about the conduct of schools, applications for the establishment of new schools, and so on, such tribunals bring in close touch with the Inspector-General’s department. One or two ministers of religion and a member of the medical profession would not be out of place on such local tribunals in conjunction with one or two hard-headed men of business. This _of course, involves the abolition of Education Boards and school committees, and they would be well out of the way. The local Boards could also act as governors for High Schools. The plan I propose tends t G simplify the administrative system, which I know would he an immense boon to the teaching fraternity by reducing the number of their masters. Eor under it they would practically he responsible only to the In-spector-General’s department. The responsi. bilities would fall there, and mostly on the inspectors. But the system would be State instead of parish vestry, as at present.

As for the system itself, suppress mixed schools as containing the germs of mischief, and discord if nothing , else, and draw the line erf free education at the fourth standard. If high intellectuality is aimed at, particularly promising boys and girls can he provided for by their relatives and by a liberal system of scholarships in the high schools. But to the great mass of the people education np to the fourth standard is ample. And the curriculum ought to be made as practical as possible for life’s purposes, chief among which a knowledge of the earth and all it contains and some knowledge of mining and agriculture, for New Zealand is undoubtedly fated to stand high among the countries of the world as an agricultural, pastoral, and mineral producer. And nothing tends to more expand the mind than some knowledge of what is outside the earth. A child capable of taking the fourth standard would be as capable of understanding the elements of astronomy.

Xate researches into the subject have more and more impressed me with the vital necessity of forming children’s characters, and reducing the volume of mere intellectual cram that is so prevalent now. And to this end a child cannotbe taken in hand too early. Hence, I would institute an elaborate, and yet simple, Kindergarten system, to cover the ages of from four to seven years in children. I would make this nearly self-supporting, by compelling payment as well as attendance—say three halfpence a week for each child. Most mothers would only be too thankful to be rid of their children for so many hours a day for such a small sum, while the advantage to the children to be subjected to strict discipline would be incalculable. Eor the Kindergartens would be essentially disciplining mediums, and much care would have to be exercised in the selection of teachers. Kindergartens, of course, might he tinder the mixed system. Indeed the intercourse of the sexes up to seven years of age would be an advantage. Make the foundation wide and solid, and the curriculum of these lower schools attractive, avoiding brain etrain the greatest attention being paid to morals, and the inculcation of respectful obedience. Purge the grosser natures of uncleanliness and deceit try and make the boys and girls cleanly and honest, and amenable to some veneration. Certainly m the Kindergartens there should be some system of religion taught, a knowledge-such as we have it-of the higher and better life. It might be made very simple, and yet effective; something that even the Roman Catholics would not object to. And here I exhort my Catholic fellow-colonists to lend a hand in the great work of educational reform, should it ever he instituted, and I trust that those who are aware of the necessity will re3t not until it is undertaken as early as possible.

After all, nothing that I know of can quite make good the deficiencies, or absence, of home training and culture. Oh, parents, if you would only realise this great, this overwhelming truth, and the most careless of you be induced to make some little sacrifice jn thedirection of taking your children early m hand, and keeping them there ! This is a subject which, if I were a parson, I should very frequently expatiate upon. Ear too many parents are content to cast all responsibility upon Church and Sunday school, and let precept and example go hang. Others, again, lower down, think not even of Church and Sunday school, and the condition of their children is deplorable. Left mostly to their own devices when out of State school—the devices of street and gutter ! ! But such a system as I advocate would be the means of producing good parents in a generation or two further on. The grave social evil—careless, selfish, and degraded parents—would by that time have nearly disappeared ; at least, it would have undergone material modification.

At seven years of age children would be drafted from the Kindergartens into the unmixed State schools to partake of free education, and it strikes me that after having undergone rigorous Kindergarten training, ew c 11 dren would not have passed the fourth standard by the time they were twelve years of age. The ethics of the Kindergartens should he extended to the State schools proper, with such spiritual admonition as would serve to baHast the subject, to induce the mind to dwell on th Tight and wrong in thought, word and deed. That is what we want to impress our children With, and that is something which, I am conh-

dent, is very much lost sight of now. Under such a system as that which I have briefly sketched, the cumbrousness, the waste that is so apparent in the existing system would disappear. Above all, I would abolish the mixed schools, and payment by results, but I would make the inspections exceptionally searching; upon the inspectors would rest a weighty reponsibility ; upon the inspector-general, perhaps, the heaviest responsibility of all. Local tribunals would serve as courts of appeal for parents and others having grievances to ventilate. And they would also serve to keep close but unobtrusive watch upon school proceedings.

What we want in our State system of education is economy and simplicity,, and I submit that my “build lip” has both in marked degree. I discharged a duty the other week in bringing into notice defects that I was convinced existed, and I have partly discharged a duty now, in proposing remedial measures. But the duty is far from being completed.

The slaughter of the innocents this session of Parliament has been remarkable for its coldbloodedness and the audacity of cognate doings. Measures vital to the people were ruthlessly abandoned, and others as vital to the political existence of members and Ministers were deliberately kept in and forced forward, while as much time was wasted in buffonery in one afternoon as would have served almost to have entertained and passed any one of the measures that’ had been discarded. Fancy a person calling himself an M.H.B. devoting an hour and a half to gibbering over the foul brood in bees ! This is just a sample of the proceedings which have stamped the Parliamentary proceedings of this year as the most fatuitous of of any that preceded them. And as for independence and high principle, no person of these peculiarities would have the slightest chance of political life inside the walls of this Colony’s Parliament. The Suppression of the Disorderly Houses Bill and the attempted forcing of the Harbours Bill are instances of the selfish degradation to which politics have sunk.

Bar the wretched politics, nmlwho could desire a more delectable country for adoption and residence than New Zealand ? I’ll defy even its politics to do it very serious injury, although they may, and do, act with depressing and obstructive effect. The agricultural and pastoral resources are amazing in their potentiality, to say nothing whatever of minerals. How marvellously these resources spring in response to the slightest stimulant is apparent at the present juncture, when quite a little agricultural and pastoral boom is towards. Stock is rising in price, sheep at between 15s and 16s, and cattle advancing; the production of cheese, butter, bacon and hams increasing, and the quality still more pronouncedly improving. The people have absorbed a lot of wisdom through the recent years of depression.il experience, and have resolved to drag prosperity out of mother earth by hook or by crook. And what is more, they are succeeding, and the outlook is becoming quite cheerful. Population we want, and if legislation would only help in that direction in the right kind of way !—But then it seems almost hopeless to look to legislation fer anything but confusion.

Really occurrences that would be ridiculous, if they did not convey such stings, happen on board ocean passenger steamers, and they also demonstrate very disagreeably how caddishness can thrive on salt water. Here are instances : —Second class passengers are preparing for a little social enjoyment in the form of a concert, and ask the captain, who can sing, to lend them a hand. He, however, turns up his nose, “ Haw, I neva mix in second class entertainments.” ’Tis just amazing how high and mighty some people become under the influence of first saloon entertainment. No sooner did they take up their berths than the line of demarcation between the “ classes ” become quite painfully apparent, and also that they, the first classers, have suddenly developed into celestial beings of marvellous intellectual qualities. Such a one was a female person who sporteda first-class ticket on one of the big ocean liners, and who, hugging herself with the idea of benevolent intentions, proposed to one or two kindred souls that they should pay a sort of missionary visit to the second class people, and take them some nice books to read. And the fun of it was that the second class “ savages ” on that particular occasion happened to be degrees above the others intellectually, socially, and everything else.

There is a movement on foot to promote cremation here. Well, there can't be two reasonable opinions about cremation being the proper way to dispose of our dead, and, therefore, the movement has my hearty good wishes and support. Wellington will be the first electrically lit city in New Zealand, and the fir3t to dispose of the city refuse in a destruefcable manner. I do hope ’twill take the lead in cremation.

A new paper has been started in London under the designation of the “ New Age and Tattler,” and someone very kindly mailed me a copy. ’Tis a most amusing publication, and I give below an extract which I am free to confess is original to me : Befoie Dr. Temple became Bishop of London ho was for some years Head Master of Rugby. One day he had occasion to correct one of the boys who had insulted an inferior master by calling him “ Pontius Pilate." The boy was flogged very severely, and at each stroke of the birch Dr. Temple cautioned him never to say Pontius Pilate again. This the boy carefully treasured in his memory, and some few weeks after, having to repeat the Belief, instead of saying “he suffered under Pontius Pilate,’ said “ he suffered under Dr. Temple, Head Master of Rugby.” Asmodeus.