A TIMELY LEAD

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7019, 6 January 1910, Page 6

A TIMELY LEAD

There are times when the university professor can he of real service to the community and make his function in the body politic a real force. Consequently, when Professor Hunter read a paper yesterday before the Educational Institute in Wellington he probably did more to stimulate an active public interest in the question he, dealt with than he would accomplish by years of lecturing to university students. Upon this subject of educa-

tion—a . living, vital problem— the . average university professor' is dfiUO more help to tho country than'.iho chairman of a rural school committee.. Ho seems to meander oh from year to year, immovably conservative, au‘d pathetically tolerant of deficiencies in the education system. Ho is practically a scholastic fatalist. . Professor Hunter is not. one of these, wo are glad to see, nor is ho afraid to speak tho truth as die secs it. ’When ho tells us that the whole education system is in , a hopeless jumble ho merely happens to bo courageous enough to say what the majority of citizens dimly see to bo tho case. Our method is expensive, and hideously wrong from top to bottom, from primary school to university. Can airy defence be made ; of primary schools which cannot teach children- to read and write correctly or to ■ handle figures with dexterity ? What is to bo said for the secondary schools, whore an inverted form of -snobbery is rampant and where prodigious efforts arc made to polish a handful of girls and boys so that they may shine in the examination results and the remainder of tho scholars mark time like so many automata? And. will it "be denied by any professor that halt the students at the .university have no'.,'right to bo there at all—are wastuig-,their time in acquiring a cheap veneer of no value to themselves or tho country F If. education is to become real, if its “ spirit ” is over .to penetrate tho people and bo reflected in our citizenship and institutions, it will only he in consequence of the subject - and all it implies having been kept iu ths forefront of questions for popular debate.