PHYSICAL TRAINING.

NZ Truth, Issue 416, 14 June 1913, Page 4

PHYSICAL TRAINING.

The Regime of " Faddism;" > ''■■ '' '* ' ,'•' ".'■ ":■■•••■•■■'.■. ''■■■■ /," "• . : ' ■■" \ Under , the regime of ' 'f addisin, " bur education system is /jthe unfortunate victim of all sorts of' futile experiments,'.' wliicli have done, and, are doing, serious harm to the intellectual development of the children on right lines. . The first aim should be a. solid., and effective .graining m essentials-. By essentials ' is aneant a.: knowledge, of those things which will enable a child to .step into thS arena of life, fairly equipped to ■ take part m the struggle for existence. . That this object is not 1 being accomplished will be fully attested by' any commercial man or .manufacturer who has to engage .'boys, or girls fresh 'from the primary schools as members of his staff. "The teachers of. the secondary and: technical schools will testify , even more emphatically to the weakness m the primary school system. Boys and girls from "the Sixth Standard ought to be able to make niental calculations quickly , and accurately, to .make out a decent, account', to do any ordinary, sum ; m arithmetic, to read and spell if airly, well, to write a decent letter or report. Any merchant m Wellington, will vouch for the' fact that tin all these things candidates for employment are sadly deficient. The College and Technical School authorities will say that their great trouble is to get free- place pupils to a sufficiently advanced stage "to be able' to appreciate the specialised subjects necessary for the various courses. It takes six months.of the first year of the advanced school life for the teachers to sa.y that the pupils with proficiency certificates are fairly good Sixth Standard boys and girls — even then they are not to be compared to the material turned otit of the old' Seventh Standard. Where then lies the fault ? Certainly not with the teachers. They are a loyal and enthusiastic body of men and women, struggling hard with the requirements of an over-loaded syllabus. They are quite conscious of the poorness of the results produced, and have tried m vain to effect an im-' provement. The 'faddists at the head of affairs are to blame. They are continually initiating: new schemes, and issuing new regulations, which look well m print, and doubtless impress the uninitiated; but which take away time from those -absolutely necessary subjects which are required m theaWrs of life. The latest of Vender m this direction is the Hon. James Allen, tho present Minister of Education: The old 'excellent school cadets have been done away with, and, m their place, he has put a fanciful system of physical training. An expensive stall" t has been engaged, and . other large expenditure incurred. The head of this stall", Mr. lioyd Garlick, delivered an address to the Wellington Teachers' Institute the other night. Those who attended anticipated some practical instruction as to how they were to carry out the de-. tails of the now scheme. They were sadly disappointed. They had simply to listen to the details of the printed syllabus, which they had read, or could easily read, for themselves. Mr. Garlick pointed out that individual instruction was the' ideal method of attaining the objects aimed at, but, as this was impossible, not more than 25 to 30 members should be m one class. Here lies the weakness. Some of the classes, from the First Standard to the Fourth, contain as many as GO, 70 and 80 children. What organisation, with a limited stafT, is going to cope with the subdivision of classes ? The time table is already sufficiently complicated— this will make confusion worse confounded. Again, most of the school buildings are entirely unsuited for such work. . Tn many cases the germ-laden walls would render tleop-ureo. thing positively dangerous. Above all thosr.« considera- | t'ions, stands the fact that British boys ami girls do not take kindly to the physical training system m vog-ue on the Continent of Kurope. Give them modern, up-to-date buildings, i plenty of fresh air, abundance of ' grass-covered playgrounds, and th ay will settle the matter of physical development for themselves. All they renu.ire is the help of the loacher to organise their games.