AMERICAN EDUCATION

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1726, 29 March 1905, Page 73 (Supplement)

AMERICAN EDUCATION

CONSOLIDATED RURAL SCHOOLS. YTANGANCT, March 21. Reporting to the Education Board last niglit on his recent visit to the States and Canada in connection with the cause of education, Mr Gray, Chief Inspector, said: “Ail along the line education has reached a high standard, and we have much to learn, especially in the matter of training teachers and the equipment of manual training and technical schools. The whole of tlie American system is permeated with the idea that the highest form of mental training is obtainable only in conjunction with manual training. The pupil teacher system is unknown in America, the supply of teachers being from well-equipped training colleges, to which only scholars who have graduated with credit from the high schools are admitted/’

Reference is made in the report to a visit paid to tlie Macdonald consolidated rural school near Toronto, to which children from a distance of from three to six miles were conveyed daily in vans. One school capable of accommodating 150 takes the place of about four small schools. The inspector says : — “The sooner we become alive to the great advantage given by this substitute for our numerous small schools the better it null be for the education of our country districts.”

As emphasising the necessity of advertising New Zealand in America, the inspector says that in seme parts surprise was manifested at the sight of a white man who was actually raised in New Zealand. A remark made to him by the representative of a large school supply manufacturing establishment in Philadelphia illustrates the prevalent misconception about “our enlightened and highly civilised corner of the world.” The inspector suggested that occasionally the firm received orders from New Zealand. He replied: “I guess we occasionally sell some stuff to American missionaries, who go down there to work among the natives” The inspector adds that he dare not say this ignorance was typical, though it was all too common. Our politics and laws are the cause of a great deal of discussion among many Americans, who take a keen interest in New Zealand’s welfare.