THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 3334, 6 February 1918, Page 49

THE WEEK.

I see that the University Senate, which was sitting in Dunedin recently, has been having trouble over the knotty 'question of girls' education, especially with reference to the inclusion of "homo science" as a matriculation subjeot. A recent arrival from Home, with a daughter who intends to study for a profession, wrote protesting against the low standard in certain subjects which prevarils in the girls' secondary, schools in this country compared with' England, and also against making home science such an essential subject in a girl's education as it Is beginning to be made here. She considers that it handicaps the girl unfairly; since boys are not troubled by such a subject. And it does handicap a girl in her educational work. To that extent the writer of the letter is perfectly right. But one cannot get away from the argument that it may be necessary for a girl to be so handicapped so long as every girl has the prospect before her of two entirely different kinds of future. She ' may have a "career" of her own, or she may become a wife and mother, and, under present conditions in this country, in the latter case a large part of the care of her household and children will be liable to fall upon her own shoulders, whatever her station in life may be. Even a girl who does not marry is pretty certain to have to turn her hand to domestic work at some time or ether in the course of her life. To my mind it is essential that this problem of the dual future for women should be recognised and dealt with, and the growing attention paid to home science is an attempt to do so. Whether that attempt is altogether on the right lines remains to be seen. Experience will show just wliat should "Bo included under home science, how far it should be made compulsory, and tho best way to include it in a girl's education, if it is going to be. included.

To really understand the matter we need to make up our minds as to what we mean by education, and that is an exceedingly difficult thing to do. Even the highest educational authorities, like university senates, can't do it. They change their minds every year. If you pinned them down you would find that at least they all agreed on the meaning of the actual word as shown by its derivation —you "know, probably, that is from the Latin, and means "to draw out," —but a,s to how the child's latent powers are to be drawn' out, and what it should do with them, are questions on which they differ largely. Also, even those who in theory know the original meaning of the- word seem to regard it in practice in the same way as. does the popular mind, as standing for "acquirement of knowledge"—quite another thing. As a matter of fact the word has grown and expanded in meaning until it covers both ideas, for, as now used, it has come to mean a preparation for life, that training which will enable the child to take its place in the world. To make the preparation a good one we have not oniv to find out the child's latent powers and abilities and give them the best chance of development, but we have to impart to it a certain amount of the knowledge that '-man has acquired during his thousands of years upon the earth. The modem child is the inheritor of the wisd'om of the previous ages. His inheritance is so large that he cannot possiblv enter into possession of it all. The difficulty is to know how much to give him at once, and how much to leave him to acquire fo'- himself afterward* if he wants to. Please be it understood that the masculine pronouns are used just here in a "eneml sense, and that "him" includes "her." T don't like doing it. but it is more convenient for the moment). Nor must we fonret that this acquirement or knowledge on the child'spart- must be combined with the necessary training and development of all his mental and physical faculties. (Mere "learning" is but a part of mental training only]. Tf is round these two voints—-how much fcc impart durincr a- child's school years, and how to combine this imparting with the development of the child's own originality —that all educational controversy rages, and it is because so man v. divergent views are held on them that all sorts of schemes are put forward and tried, and svlla.buses altered over and over again. It seems difficult to agree upon what a.re the essentials in educational training, exceot

that when we try to get down to bed-rock we cannot get away from the good old "three R's." To learn to read and write, and so communicate with his fellow-men, and to learn how to calculate with thor& mysterious things called "numbers," are absolutely necessary if the future citizen is to find out much about the wonderful world around him, or her. Once you have taught a child to read you have opened the way for him to vast fields of knowledge; but he Avon't go and browse there unless he is led, and then he would be sorry afterwards. He depends on you to show him where to go. And what are yoa going to show him? There is all the history of his own and other races to learn the reseai-ches into science that have been made by others before him to learn of, and all the literature of the world to please him. You will want to find out, too, whether this child, boy or girl, has in it the capability of expressing it-self as others have done, in art or music, and

I you will Lave to remember that that boy . or girl will have work to do in the world I of some kind or other, and if you are wise you will want that work to be of use to mankind, amd not something that means only wealth and position or what is, unfortunately, generally known as "success." Goodness, how are you going to do it all in a few short years! It can't bo done of course. We can only give our children an inkling of all there is for them to find out if they choose, teach them a little of the world of men and the natural world around them, or when we have found out the particular bent of theirs minds, let them follow up that line in particular. That can't be done, I may say, under our present educational system, which allows too little time for individual and original work. Nor does our economic system help, where many have to become i wage-earners before they have developed their possibilities, and many with no • "possibilties" in them to speak of would

be better doing some of the work of the world rather than wasting their time in frying to acquire accomplishments. I have got a long way from "home science," though, in my disquisition on education in general, and the rest will have to wait for another time. At the beginning of the year, with the children all going back to school, it will do us no harm to spend an hour or two looking ahead, trying to see what we are aiming at in this matter. ELIZABETH