PLAYING AT EDUCATION

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 11248, 28 June 1922, Page 7

PLAYING AT EDUCATION

MR BERNARD SHAW'S TIRADE. LONDON, May 12. Some cane tic words on education were uttered by Mr Bernard Shaw at the Theo&ophical School, Letchworth. None of our schools turned out children who could speak or think coherrently, lie said. Elementary and secondary children could only read and write with great reluctance, whilst the higher types of schools and universities were ro* sponsible for the depravity and idiocy of Europe’s governmental classes. In village schools it was sufficient to teach a little manners and enough mental arithmetic to add up to 13s and produce a little change. Education for the professional classes was also bad. Asking a friend how doctors had passed their examinations* he was told: "You shoud have socn the fellows who didn't I" There should, said Mr Shaw, be panels from which to draw qualified (people. JTt the schools for the rich capacity was quite ignored except in useless subjects, and there was no protection against overstrain. In the schools for the poor deficient mentality was assumed. The truth was that peotple wanted children taken off their hands. They were nuisances. Therefore they were put into buildings which were prisons, and under .schoolmasters who were warder® and the result was atrophy of the sense of responsibility. The only remedy was to allow a child to learn exactly what it should, and there leave it free to live its own life in its own way.