EDUCATIONAL POINTS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 6179, 10 April 1907, Page 8

EDUCATIONAL POINTS.

(To the Editor, “New Zealand Times*/*) Sir.—Your leader of to-day, reviewing the Education Board's annual report, is an illuminating article, and to my mind an excellent contribution to educational ■ literature. . I Two t-pics in particular interest m© much, viz., th© reading difficulty and tho arithmetic fetish, -and your remarks on both are particularly worthy of attention, The reading diliiculy public schools appears to b© absolutely insuperable, but I fancy the remedy lies in the patient cultivation of expression in ordinary oonvefsation, and the gradual bringing before the pupil's mind the importance of tone. This cannot be don© in a day or a year. With many children of quick sensibilities and keen receptive faculties and vivid Imagination the task is easy, but with the rank and fils (I mean in th© intellectual sense, of course) it is a long and very doubtful process. Many persons of culture as your are of course aware, remain indifferent, sometimes atrocious, readers -all their lives. Simultaneous reading is a pis-allor only, which teachers are driven to adopt. I think w© must look to the teachers’ own example in reading and conversation mainly, as well as vigilance in correction and guidance, and to increased admonition of the elder children to cultivate reading aloud at homo or in the fields. Of course the question has a physical and a psychic aspect that must be taken into consideration. Your reference to the undue exaltation c* arithmetic as one ci Hie factors of, education is well timed. Supposing the theory that many business people were carried to its logical conclusion, what jcort of stunted intellectual oddities would the next generation consist riV They would be “smart” at calculation and* rapid in meth.de. But what would become of their best faculties? I one© knew a xovy eminent English merchant (himself, by the way, an Oxford graduate) who I remember used to scout the idea of the three R's being a sufficient equipment for the commercial aspirant. Ha thought busin 03 called the exercise of much higher faculties. Ho thought memory, judgment, imagination, analysis, culture, subtle processes of mind were all called into play to make a successful business man, I am aware, as no doubt you are, that in a system which has to embrace large numbers of minds thrown together under definite regulation?, there is an unavoidable tendency to got- into grooves and many desirable things have to h© put aside to allow the car of Juggernaut to go br. —I am, etc., * ' CURATOR. 2nd April, 1907*