READING IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS.

Ohinemuri Gazette, Volume VII, Issue 450, 11 December 1897, Page 3

READING IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS.

■ ♦ Some time ago, when commenting on a remark made by Dr Grace in the . Legislative Council, we ventured to criticise- the present methods of primary school teachers in New Zealand, and to point out that under the system now in vogue a child is not really educattd or even grounded, but is simply " prepared" or crammed, year by year, for the inspector's examination. If any proof of this is required, it is to be found in a paper read by Mr F. J. Alley, of the '*"" Kowai Pass School, at a recent meeting of the Educational Institute. Mr Alley pointed out, as strongly as it c6uld be pointed out, that the whole tendency of the primary school teacher is to work in a groove, to go through a monotonous round of preparation for the annual examination, on the one-reading-bopk-a-class principle. At the present time every other subject in the syllabus is made subordinate to arithmetic, so that the ordinary - schoolboy is expected to thrive men-

tally with twice - one - are - two for breakfast, dinner and tea; he seems to get reading for dinner on Sundays, and history and geography in small helpings as pudding on-alternate days. There need be no wonder that the children turned out from the Sixth Standard know practically nothing- of the ordinary facts of existence. The only way to make a boy learn is to quicken his imagination, and the only way to do that is to give him plenty of healthy and interesting reading. From the teacher's point of view alone such areformwouldbe truly acceptable. Mr Alley quotes in stances from his own experience to show the manifest advantages of varied reading, and states a fact that cannot be denied, namely, that the brightest boys come from those homes where there is a well-stocked library or bookshelf. From the merely literary, standpoint a wide course of reading among the classic English writers is by far the best mothed of securing correctness of spelling and punctuation, accuracy in the expression of ideas, as well as in mere formal grammer. There would not be so many larrikins in our streets if they had a better acquaintance with the shelves of our public libraries, and children will never read for pleasure so long as reading is drudgery. Mr Alley's paper, as a whole, if a fine exposition of the plea for more and better reading- in our public schools. • ~ Canterbury Times.