POST PRIMARY EDUCATION.

Otago Witness, Issue 3672, 29 July 1924, Page 32

POST PRIMARY EDUCATION.

“ GUTTER TO UNIVERSITY.” AUCKLAND, July 22. Professor John Adams, emeritus Professor of Education, University of London, gave an address to teachers to-day on postprimary education, illustrating the differences between education systems in England and America, and also in France and Germany. He noted with emphasis that in England the distinction between elementary and secondary schools was along the line of social cleavage. The worst evils of the

old sysem had entirely gone, giving way to a broader conception of the educational needs of the nation and a wider practice in promising conditions of practical as well as cultural education. Traces of the old system still lingered in England, but the gulf between elementary and secondary schools had been bridged. Huxley once wrote strongly of the educational ladder leading from the gutter to the university, but that had since been countered by Professor Lawrie, of Edinburgh, who had lectured on how to obtain for the children of the well-to-do some of the advantages of the gutter. The guttersnipe had a nimbleness of certain knowledge mostly confined to the coin of the realm, but it had its limitations. From what he had already seen in Auckland the school children were gaining all the advantages of the guttei without any of the disadvantages. Professor Adams spoke of the necessity for the wise supervision and guidance of hoys and girls between the ages of 14 and 18 years, which was the most crucial stage of their lives. “I think,” he said, “we should make more allowance than we do for dull boys and dull girls. It would be better to give them the kind of work they can do instead of continually boring them with our literary and artistic ideas with which they have no concern. We are doing them harm instead of good.” Under proper supervision and a special course of instruction children could be raised to a high standard of citizenship. What we wanted was good citizenship without talking too much about it as in America. It was a pleasure to see that New Zealand was training its citizens in a reticent .way.