South Canterbury Times, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1893.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 7288, 16 August 1893, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1893.

Attention has been drawn to the subject of home lessons given out at the public schools. A Christchurch teacher, Mr Baldwin, discontinued the practice, with, he says, the best results, the fact became public, and in several quarters besides Timaru the demand is made that Mr Baldwin’s example shall be followed. The system is objectionable on many grounds, and it is not countenanced by the Education Act—it would, of course, be no better if it were. Childhood is the time for learning, but the home lesson system can only be defended by those who would say that children have nothing to learn except what is taught at school. One has only to consider which is likely to become the roost useful member of society, the boy who knows nothing of book-learning, or the one who knows nothing else, to see that there is much for children to learn with which the schoolmaster has nothing at all to do. The children of this generation are in danger of getting too much schooling—too much while they are at school, and not enough afterwards. Attention needs to be drawn, too, to the objectionable practice of “ keeping in,” which is now carried to unwarrantable lengths at the Timaru school. The Committee are paying some attention to the home lessons question ; they would do well to inquire iuto unwarranted extension of schoolhours, in some cases twice a day, by the system of “ keeping in.”

The faction fights of the Sister Isle are tamo affairs compared with those which now and again disturb the peace of Indian cities. The Mohammedan when excited with religious zeal by partaking in an annual festival, purposely insults the Hindu, who differs from the Mohammedan particularly on the subject of the sacrifice of cattle ; and on the other hand the Hindu disturbs the quieter sectary by the noisiness of his religious processions. The weakness of self restraint in both parties leads to rows and violence, and always has done so. The late disturbances in Bombay therefore have no more political meaning than had the “ Saiga of Timaroo ” immortalised by Bracken.