Medical Congress.

Opunake Times, Volume IV, Issue 168, 11 February 1896, Page 2

Medical Congress.

At the Medical Congress, held at Dunedin, Dr Stenhouse (Dunedin) read a paper on “ Educational Problems,” in which ho contended that education in school should not commence before seven years of age. He also condemned the Kindergarten system which sought to put infants under restraint and discipline from two years and upwards. Ho denounced the system of standard teaching as false in theory and faulty in working. As to female education, especially in the secondary and university systems, ho believed it was settled on lines entirely opposed to the scientific opinion of the day. Dr McDouall (New South Wales) thought it would be a mistake to leave the commencement of education to seven.

Dr Mason (Otaki) thought the point at issue was the individual problem.

Dr Spriugthorpe, spesking generally, regarded the sending of the average child to school before the age of six or seven as the lesser of two evils. As to female education, perhaps it was true that woman’s brain was less than man’s, but there was a reason for this in the cramping process of the past. We might in time, Avhen women get back the extra brain power which they had lost for want of use, find a female Shakespeare. It seemed to him that women were entitled to be educated like the opposite sex, if they could go through it, and he thought they could go through it in many instances, though they frequently suffered from the way they went about it. High pressure ana continued over pressure seemed to him to be the main evils of our modern system of education.