The Education System.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXV, Issue 9729, 4 January 1908, Page 1

The Education System.

(Gtago Daily Times' Correspondent.) Auckland, January 3. Dealing editorially with the presidential address to the Educational Institute the Star, after referring to the old system, savs ;_--Nothing was left to the discretion ot the teacher, and accordingly very little was left to tlie imagination or the initiative of the scholar. Judged by any standI ard of efficiency recognised by the highest j educational authorities to-day" such work [ could result only in failure, or a partial and delusive success; and, in so far as the methods of teaching and learning now in vogue in our primary schools represent a strong contrast to the old machine-made system, with its procrustean examinations, the change has been infinitely for the better. No one who has intelligently considered the subject can doubt that a system which makes iair allowances for the personal equation in both teachers and scholars, and which regards the way in which a thing is learned or an opinion formed as inlmilely more important than the reproduction of dead facts, is at least , a step on the right road" towards the realisation of the l>est educational ideals. But, as Mr Aitken pointed out, the very completeness of the change from the old system to the new contains in itself a dan- , ger to the cause of true education. The swing of the pendulum lias biought us in j a moment from one extreme to the other. Our teaching was once largely unscientific, j It nuu-t now be not duly scientific in the ; broad sense, but it must" deal very largely . with the subject matter of the natural and physical sciences. The learning of our pupils was once ton rigidly precise, too mechanical, too dependent upon memory. Now 'the wheel lias gone full circle,' and we are ashamed to insist upon a literal and accurate knowledge-of facts or to call . upon children to use their memories. We : should.lay ourselves open to the charge of j relapsing" into superstition of the old j examination, and percentage era. Mr Aitken naturally touched with a light hand upon the more obvious defect of the new primary school syllabus, and he might with justice" have worded his protest much more strongly. No one can examine the new syllabus with its porteutious array of pseudo-scientific subjects, almost submerging what used to be regarded as the permanent essentials of primary education, . without feeling that, as Mr Aitkin puts it, the work in which careful application and accurate reproduction of facts are requisite is being elbowed out of the way by Nature study and observation lessons. To put the "case on the very lowest ground, we cannot conceive it possible that teachers or children can find time or energy to cover the immense range of subjects now set before" them. But the faults ; of the new system appear to us to lio ] deeper than this. Its tendency is to ig- ; nore such eminently useful as his- , tory and grammar in favor of subjects in ; which the individual powers of the pupil/ | are supposed to be more freely exercised, ! and to substitute for the close application | and careful memory-training which the old j system involved a vague bowing acquamt- ! ance with superficial scientific facts and theories for which there is no time and no | room in an already overcrowded primary • school curriculum. The new system fails ! through aiming too high and striving to : cover too much ground, and it fails also ' through largely ignoring the importance of memory as an educational factor and the ! value of such subjects as demand in their ' study the acquisition of precise and definite facts in an orderly and systematic i wav. Mr Aitkeii did not say all this, but the" lines that his address followed lead ! in this direction, and we hold with him ' that one of the worst dangers that our education system has to fear is the modern tendency to diverge as far as possible from j the old order of things, and, in endeavor- ! ing to reform the abuses of the old system, to forget its merits and sacrifice nearly all ! that was .valuable in it .without any fair I , equivalent."