THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, July 19, 1939. EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23864, 19 July 1939, Page 10

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, July 19, 1939. EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS

When the Minister of Education observes that the education system can never with advantage stand still he gives expression, of course, to what must be recognfsed as a great truth. It may be said that even if it were desirable that it should stand still the education system has had little opportunity of doing so, for it is difficult to remember a time when the voice of the educational reformer was not loud in the land, and the empiricist was not proclaiming the subject to be his particular hobby. And so, prodded by zealots in this direction and that, and exhibiting on the whole no doubt a remarkable resilience and cohesiveness, the education system, as exemplified in a comparatively young country such as this, has run the gamut of the years, and is enduring still, perhaps more noticeably than at any previous period, the pangs of transitionary processes. Its unrest may possibly be claimed to be divine, like that discontent with which man is associated in his lot in this difficult and troubled world. The educational ideal is something of an ignis fatuus, a will o’ the wisp. Its pursuit is unflagging, and sometimes leads, no doubt, into quagmires. But the would-be creators of the perfect educational path for the child never seem to lose their enthusiasm, and of further peaks of educational achievement marked down for conquest there is never any lack. In a general way the schools which are so important a symbol of the education system stand, nevertheless, in an appreciable sense for constancy amid manifestations of flux. They are the seats of assemblage and instruction. In its essence the education system remains reasonably unperturbed. Educational slogans wax and wane. The banner upon which was emblazoned “Agricultural bias ” is no longer carried aloft. Others, less glamorous perhaps, have replaced it. Milk and malnutrition have invaded the scene. “ Proficiency ” has been ejected from the primary school as an interloper, tried and found wanting. The progress of primary education in this Dominion must be a story full of interest and fascination to those well versed in its pages and chapters. Such reflections are prompted by the Minister’s reference to the early days in New Zealand when education was compulsory only up to the fourth standard, and “when ability to read, and write, and perform simple arithmetical calculations was all that was considered necessary.” He may be judged, perhaps wrongly, to have implied that primary education in those days was a poor thing compared with what it is to-day. But nobody should imagine, of course, that educational ideals burned less brightly in the New Zealand of hose days than in the remarkable times in which the child of the present generation is privileged to be an object of searching educational solicitude. Many a senior in the community will be ready to attest otherwise, and to affirm that his schooldays seemed to b fraught with even more serious purport than appears to be the case with the school cl Idren of our Centenary year. Of the importance attached to the “ three R’s ” it seems to be the fashion to speak mostly in terms of depreciation. Yet to read well, to write well, and to cipher correctly were surely great attainments. If the outlook towards thoroughness in the mastery of what at one time were considered the very essentials of primary education has changed, it may not be necessarily all for the belter. The lengthening of the school life, the enlargement of the scope of school work, the broadening of the curriculum, arc doubtless all good things, and the Minister has them in view | in the legislation which he proposes to introduce. But there is room for speculation enough as to whether school-room education is achieving results to-day in comparison with which those of a-quarter or half a century ago make but a poor showing. New Zealand had her distinguished educationists in the past, The primary school was no doubt a sterner place than it is to-day, but it secured results. If the pupils are a happier band to-day that should be a good thing. Perhaps there cannot be educational advance without some retrogression.