THOUGHTS ON EDUCATION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20338, 21 February 1928, Page 5

THOUGHTS ON EDUCATION.

SEASON OF CONFERENCES. OPINIONS ON MANY SUBJECTS. REFORM OF EXAMINATION SYSTEM. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, January 10. During the present Christmas vacation there are no fewer than 18 educational associations holding conferences. The following are some of the points of the papers and speeches: — Mr J. Howard Whitehouse, at the Head Masters’ Conference, declared that .the worst thing for education was for our schools to be permanently controlled through a certain form of examination becoming stereotyped. Reform of our examination system was very necessary to give greater breadth to the curriculum of schools. Alluding to the need for developing a higher general standard of thought by improving the education of the children, Mr Whitehouse spoke of the salacious plays being presented at some London theatres to-day and to some of the books to be seen on the tables of drawing rooms, which depended for theitf appeal on the repulsive character of tneir contents. The youth of the country, too, was being degraded by the outbreak of mechanical greyhound racing as a pas lime, which had brought a new evil into the country on a great scale and had led to betting by young peovfle to an extent which had not existed before. These things made it all the more necessary oday to give the children in our schools a higher, nobler interest in life, and he .believed one of the best ways of doing that was by giving full scope to the children’s own creative activities. TREND OF ART. Sir George Clausen, R.A., at the Art Teachers’ Guild, said that tradition in art had almost died out, only a remnant of it remaining in the practice of house painters and coach painters. In the course of change there came the realists who tried to paint things as they saw them. Realism replaced tradition, and it in turn became discredited when literal imitation became an end in itself and impressionism developed, giving the beauty of fleeting effects and movement, at the expense of form. Then came thr latter phase to unite the expression of form with what had been gained in colour—to recreate impressionism with the spirit of the Primitive. “ And so from formalism we have gone through realism, impressionism, expressionism, cufnsm, symbolism, real and affected childishness, and deliberate distortions. We have studied the art of the savage, and have experimented in every possible direction, and I think, and certainly hope, that we have come ro the end of this phase.” A good deal of modern art seemed to be due to slack thinking and a disinclination to’ the bard work that was necessary to paint well; to a desire to be in the fashion, and to attract attention at any price. Intention. was taken for achievement, and must not be taken as final. When a child ran away from home it was generally the fault of the parents, and the confusion in modern art was due to a similar cause. LETTER WRITING. Opening a discussion on “What commerce and industry ask of the secondary schools,” Sir Hugo Hirst, chairman of the General Electric Company, said he still believed that good handwriting was essential. It was a great asset, and it hat’ been neglected. “ There arc very few people we get from your schools,” he said, “ or from the public schools who can write a good letter, who know how to address people, to put things in a few simple words straight to the point, without meaningless phrases. You must save time in business. We get too many letters requiring thought-readers • to understand, between the lines, what people mean.” HALF-BAKED MUSICIANS. How was the music profession to meet the depression with which it was faced? asked Dr E. Markham Lee, at the Conference of Musicians. “ The only real remedy that I can see is that there must be fewer of us. There is only one way to reduce the number of entrants to the profession. First of all, to make a gate of entry to ti, and then to make that gate difficult to go through. Some people think there is already a gate of entry, and point to certain degrees and diplomas. There is no gate. People tumble in just as they like, and you cannot hoof them out. The only method of building such a gate is so to educate public opinion that it will not employ any musician or music teacher other than a really qualified person. “To my mind the profession of music will uever bo on a par with some of the other professions until there is a gate of entry which demands not merely a test of musical ability, but one of ordinary general education. Why should we expect educationists to recognise us so long as we do not insist upon real education? I have heard some startling things lately on this point. I know of one school on the South Coast where the head mistress will not employ a music teacher who possesses musical diplomas alone, but insists on the B.A. degree as well. That mistress is a little ahead of her time, but she is on the right line. What is the good of having a lot of these half-baked people who know music and nothing else? ” CHILDREN AND THE WIRELESS. Mr J. C. Stobart, of the British Broadcasting Corporation, said that a distinguished headmaster had recently referred to children listening to the wireless while reclining in armchairs. “ There are headmasters,” Mr Stobart commented, “ who are happy so long as they see boys running about with books under their arms and an appearance of external activity. ''But a great deal of useful work is done in chairs, even armchairs. What the 8.8. C. seek to do is to provide food for thought that is stimulating.” In view of the doubts that exist as to whether children retain in their meriiory what they hear over the wireless, special interest attaches to a recent test. Ten stories wer© told at intervals, and then the children were asked to, write one of the stories. If thev found difficulty in remembering what they heard it might be presumed that tiiey would choose the last story told, but, as a matter of fact, only 13 per cent, selected that story, and others were chosen in about equal proportions. BOOKS ON EDUCATION. “ Educationists are not best sellers,” was the comment of Sir Michael Sadler, to the Association of University Women Teachers.

Sir Michael began by remarking that in the weather reports one often read, “ Mainly dull, with bright intervals,” and that was what they had to say, in general, about writers on education in all ■lands. The poor dogs had a bad name; they barked too much. Some educational writings, once thrilling, like Arnold’s sermons, had got dull through decay in theological formulae. Arnold might be dull to us to-day, in the history of Rome, the Oxford lectures, and even in hig passion*, breathing essay on church reform, but no description of' the man himself was dulj, because he was the channel of a mysterious power. Our present duplex state of mind about the Prayer Book of the Church of England wag due to Arnold’s death coming when it did, not to speak ot the establishment, for good and for evil, of the famous Rugby tradition. But some writers on education were never dull. There was not a flat word in John Locke’s “ Thoughts Concerning Education,” or in his “Conduct of the Understanding.” Bernard Mandeville’s “ Essay on Charity and Charity Schools ” was as mordant as Bernard Shaw, and dull was the last word one would think of in reading Vaughan or Blake. Wordsworth’s “Prelude”

was, perhaps, the greatest book that was ever written about childhood and schooltime. THE ROD AND THE CHILD. “ What mountains of cruel wrong have been piled upon childhood in the name of religion by perfectly sincere and wodlmonning people,” declared Mr T. Rayrnont, late warden of Goldsmiths’ College, at a meeting of the Froebel Society. The subject of discussion was “ England’s Educational Debt to Froebel.” Speaking of the terrible austerity of the old theologians, Mr Raymont said that the practice of tearing texts of Scripture from their context and halting them into principles of action never was more hideously exemplified than in the words. “ Spare the rod and spoil the child.” He recalled that Susannah Wesley, mother of the brothers John and Charles, drew up an account of her method of training children, in which she stated: “ When they turned a year old, and some of them before, they were taught to fear the rod and to cry softly.” This and some of the principles which Thomas Arnold held to be fundamentally true, Froebel held to be fundamentally false. Above all. he ranked as the great philosopher of play. INFLUENCE OF THE FILM. Mr G. Kirkham Jones, headmaster of n boys’ school at Battersea, said that the teaching profession was waking up to the fact that every film, for good or ill, was educational, and that the picture palace ranked with the school and the home os one-of the most vitally important factors in education, academic and social. More than 20,000,000 people attended British kinemas every week, and more than 90 per cent, of senior scholars went there regularly. After more than three years’ with children’s shows, be had no hesitation in saying that the kinema was the most potent piece of educational apparatus for “ tjuick-fire ” instructional purposes. Hitf prophecy of the posibilities in the “ machining ” of education in the year 2028 was that school children would be able, by merely switching on, to sea and to hear great passing events all over the world. They would see- and. hear Niagara Falls, volcanoes in eruption, and the sights and sounds of factories in the great industrial centres. * Much of the imparting, if exact, information could be done economically and efiicieutly by mechanical aids to education such as he had described. SERMONS AND HYMNS.] “ Religious education of children over 14 years of age ” was discussed at a meeting of the Church of England Sunday School Institute. Miss Anthony, speaking on the religious education of girls over 14 in secondary schools, said it should be imparted through th© tone of the school in its corporate life, in its prayers and worship, and in its Scriptural lessons. Girls disliked sentimental or emotional hymns, and these should be avoided. Worship should be made to serve the sens© of beauty. Bright and brief services were a mistake. What girls desired in services were reality and high purpose. In sermons they liked not mere teaching, But direction how to get into touch or contact with God in prayer and in the Sacrament. The Scriptural lesson should consist of the principles upon which the Christian life was based. All religious education should be focussed on the person and teachings of Our Lord. In that its living interest lay. THIRST FOR KNOWLEDGE. Dr Edward Lyttelton, formerly headmaster of Eton, at a meeting of the London Headmasters’ Association, said that in the enormous revolution that had taken place in ©very department of English life in the last half-century ottr teaching had become much more conscientious and zealous, and the proverbial idleness of the English schoolboy was now almost a thing of the past. Whether the teaching in secondary schools had any real success depended upon whether the hoy or girl left school eager to go on learning. So far as the big public schools were concerned, he could say that the number of boys who left with a real thirst for going on learning was deplorably small compared with the enormous number who worked reluctantly because they knew they must work. Most healthy children were keen on learning befor© they were taught, and the reason they expected great things ol teaching wa s because learning had been so joyous up to that time. The child did not realise that the world was a very disorderly place until he began to go to school. “ Lists, marks, weekly orcirs, examinations at end of term, the competitive stimulus given in schools, and the rivalry between one pupil and another are all a direct stimulus to egoism,” went on the speaker, “ and if it is that, it is pmsom. ing the very vitals of character vtselt. He wished they could, abolish all orders and marks, and all examinations, except for the particular purpose for which they were at present indispensable.