The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. TUESDAY, JUNE 13, 1933. THE FOUNDATIONS

Southland Times, Issue 22040, 13 June 1933, Page 4

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. TUESDAY, JUNE 13, 1933. THE FOUNDATIONS

Undoubtedly, as education should be a continuous process, the element of interruption in the school life is undesirable, and in these days, when foundational deficiencies in what might be called fundamental subjects appear when the children make their first step from the primary to the secondary branches of the system, it does not seem desirable that there should be installed another system of schools, whether they be in the same building or in different buildings, to put the unfortunate children to the disability of a sudden change in conditions or in methods. In spite of all that the educationists have been saying about the modern methods, the bald fact remains that the children who emerge from the school system of this country seem to have no firm grasp of the fundamentals of English, or, in many cases, of arithmetic. They can manipulate pieces of wood to a certain extent, they know a little about gardening, and they have a general working knowledge of such subjects as sport and moving picture stars, some slight scientific information, but a very dubious knowledge of the world .as it extends to-day, and a very uncertain grasp of the general history of the Empire to which they belong. It is surprising to discover in boys and girls who have come through primary schools such a poor’ understanding of the substance and the rules of the English language. In most secondary schools of the Dominion, boys and girls in their first year are doing work which should belong to their primary school period. It would appear that for some time there have been earnest efforts to provide short cuts and to make schools more attractive, and in that effort there has been lost the desire to establish the foundations of education firmly, when hard labour is involved in that process. Undoubtedly times have changed, and the education system must change to meet the new conditions, but the foundation of all education is the language that we speak and write, and if a child is not well equipped to use the language, it must find all other branches of study more irksome than they should be. In many quarters there have been teachers who, holding the view that it is impossible to spell all the words in the language, consider it desirable not to teach them any, and we think that in the majority of the business houses of the Dominion there will be found evidence of young people coming from the primary and even from the secondary schools displaying marked weaknesses in spelling and in the knowledge of words. The fault is not theirs. The blame must be put upon the system of education which can turn out these young people as their products, young people whose deficiencies strike at the very root of human understanding and of a person’s capacity of acquiring knowledge. It would be wrong, of course, to expect too much of young people, but the expectation standard to which we refer is by no means a high one, and it touches the elementary methods in connection with the training of the boys and girls' in English. That New Zealand still produces brilliant students cannot be denied, but those students will rise to the top no matter what deficiencies the system may have. We are concerned with the great mass of boys and girls who come on to the market every year, inadequately equipped for the work they are to undertake, and not sufficiently trained to continue the educational processes begun at the schools. The short-cut methods in foundational training invariably lead to the development of weaknesses in later stages, and until we can be sure that the foundations are properly installed, we cannot be satisfied that the training given to the young people of this country is all that it should be, And that we can get good value for the money expended on education.