Poverty Bay Herald AND East Coast News Letter. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. SATURDAY, JANUARY 11, 1879.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume 6, Issue 597, 11 January 1879, Page 2

Poverty Bay Herald AND East Coast News Letter. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. SATURDAY, JANUARY 11, 1879.

It is with no little satisfaction we find, that throughout the colony, meetings have been held for the object of protesting against the last new "syllibus" which has emanated from the Commissioner of Education. Nothing could by any possibility be more wickedly absurd, and dangerous, thai, the attempt to cram children of tender years, with those matters relating to science, and erudite subjects, which we undertake to say, the Commissioner himself does not understand, and which not one schoolmaster m twenty would be found competent to teach. Even, if the effort could be made by children to acquire one tithe of what they are told it will be necessary for them to learn, it could only be done by close study, and long application after school hours ; and this, on behalf of young brains, we must protest against m which, we trust, so will all thoughtful andconsiderate parents. It is said new brooms, sweep clean ; but old brooms know the corners best. The Commissioner of Education, with his army of school inspectors, we imagine, are under the impression that they must do something for their money, and so have set to work to contrive how they can best harass and undermine the health of children and school teachers alike. These men do not appear to have made themselves acquainted with the excellent systems which haive long been tried m schools, and which have been found so eminently successful. No! everything relating to school teaching m the past is to be clean swept away, and science and all the " ologies" to be made to take its place. Teachers, assistant teachers, and pupil teachers must now know as much as an undergraduate of a leaduniversity before they are to be considered competent to cram the heads of little children with that kind of knowledge which can only be obtained by those of mature years, and then only a certain few. We think Inspectors cannot follow and obey a finer teacher JHe who is at the present time t^ffg^ier and admiration of the (Reared world. Referring to the crammjW of children with all kinds of knowledge Professor Huxley says " above all things let my pupil have preserved the freshness and vigor of youth m his mind as well as the body. The educational abomination of desolation of the present day is the stimulation of young people to work at high pressure by incessant competitive examinations. .Some wise man (who probably was

not an early riser) has said of early risers m general that they are conceited all the forenoon aud stupid all the afternoon. Now, whether this is true of all the early risers m the world I cannot say, but m many instances all youthful freshness has been washed out of them by precocious mental debauchery — by Jbook gluttony and lesson bibbing. The faculties are worn out by the strain upon the callow brains, and they are demoralised by worthless childish triumphs before the real work of life begins. I nave no compassion for the sloth, but youth has more neejl for intellectual rest than age j and the cheerfulness, the tenacity of purpose, the power of work which has made many a successful man what he is, must be placed to the credit, not of his hours and industry but to that of his hours of idleness m boyhood. Even the hardest worker of us all, if he has anything to deal with anything above mere details, will do well, now and again, to let his brains lie fallow for a space. The next crop of thought will certainly be all the fuller m the ear, and the weeds fewer." These are the words of a wise man and unless public opinion is brought to bear against the forcing system now attempted to be carried out m our free schools, it will be found when too late, that instead of having trained our boys and girls to make them fit as men and women to go out into the world to fight the battle of life, we shall see tens of thousands of them stunted m growth, physically weak, and inert, with brains used up, exhausted and incapable of exertion.