THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27, 1924. AN EDUCATIONAL MISSIONED.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19261, 27 August 1924, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27, 1924. AN EDUCATIONAL MISSIONED.

The visit to Dunedin of an educationist of sucli repute as Professor John Adams has been in a sense a test of tho sincerity of tho educational aspirations of this community, and it is satisfactory to seo that it has been fully appreciated as presenting an opportunity to be made the most of. The educational problem is very much in the forefront to-day. And inasmuch as in the case of Professor Adams’s expert knowledge of his subject is allied to manifest breadth of vision, ripeness of judgment and an enviable gift of expression, he is a typo of lecturer who may not pass this way more than once in a generation. In New Zealand from primary school to university there is today a good deal of educational heartsearching; a desire for progress and advancement upon improved lines is finding manifestation m various directions. There is a groping, as it were, for more educational light. This only reflects possibly response to an impulse which is making itself felt in various parts of the world. It is not given to a small community such as this to lead in matters educational. But if it must follow it need not necessarily lag behind. All things considered, Professor Adams seems to appear in our midst at a very opportune juncture. He is an educational missioner. and he has a message to deliver to which it must be well worth our while to give attentive ear. In the admirable addresses delivered by him during his brief stay in Dunedin the professor has covered much educational ground, to the manifest edification of audiences which have not been composed exclusively of members of the scholastic profession or those in more or less close touch with educational affairs. Even those who have hhd to be content with reading the reported summaries of bis lectures must have come to the conclusion that to have the educational field thus traversed in so wise and liberal a spirit has been a privilege. The attitude of Professor Adams in relation either to his subject or to his hearers has been tho more helpful, we imagine, because it has been remarkably free from dogmatism. He has not come amongst us to discharge the heavy artillery of destructive criticism. To have done so, even were there justification enough, would have been to discourage enthusiasm and promote controversy. The purport of the lecturer has been to illuminate the subject upon which he is able to speak with such excellent authority, and to discuss the teacher’s task and the pupil’s prospects of mental development from angles cf view that are perhaps too much ignored and concerning which a wider understanding is desirable. Teachers are members of a responsible and busy profession, and while they are no doubt conservative, as Professor Adams suggests, there is nothing very surprising in that. They are in a considerable measure the product of the system of which they are part, even as they are its servants. Trained in the adoption of certain methods for the attainment of certain results, they might naturally be more or less suspicious of educational innovations, even if the time and tho opportunity for testing the same were available to them. But it can only bo to the advantage of the teacher to be well informed respecting the movements and tendencies in the world of education to-day; and, listening to Professor Adams, he cannot, but have found encouragement for th® adoption of a more open mind and a wider outlook in his profession. It must be recognised in any event that, supposing it to be desirable that much that is traditional in the schoolroom should be discarded, this can only be brought about by a gradual process, for the changes involved must in some aspects be very far-reaching. The difficulties in relation to class-teaching are more or less apparent. In New Zealand schools the size of the classes which one teacher is expected to instruct renders it generally impossible that the pupil should receive the individual attention that is no doubt desirable. Reduction in the size of classes must mean increased staffing and probably more accommodation; ithas been a pious objective of the Education Department for many years, and is still such. But the size of classes is culy one of the aspects of our system of primary education which seems to dictate adherence to traditional methods, which, though it may be claimed that they produce good results, are certainly not in very close harmony with the lines of educational development traversed by Professor Adams.