CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 29, 28 July 1911, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

TWANG! WENT THE LONG BOW. There is likely to be a rush of British youngsters to New Zealand shortly, where they will, if possible, become telegraph messengers. It is remembered with pride that .the Premier, Sir Joseph Ward, hart., began his distinguished working career as a New Zealand telegraph messenger, and rapidly won his way on to the highest rungs of the commercial ladder. It is natural that our relatives at Home should, equally with us, worship at the shrine of success. A London papeV had the good fortune to catch our Premier and to obtain an interview with him. We have hitherto regarded the British Press as peculiarly free from the flamboyance and exaggeration characteristic of the Press of our other relatives, the United States Americans. Here is an interesting extract from the interview:—

"The lad got his start in life as a telegraph-boy in the Postal and Telegraph Department. Sir Joseph Ward is not fond of talking about himself, but as illustrating how wages go in New Zealand he dejights to tell you that his commencing -salary Was £1 a week, while as a fourteen-year-old telegraph boy he was getting £l3O a year!" Of course, it is certain that Sir Joseph Ward did not infer that when he was a boy the New Zealand Government was. so extraordinarily liberal, and it necessarily follows that one must believe that* the fourteen-year-old Premier-to-be was cither commercially lucky out of office hours or that the paper is soaring in the realms of fancy. Present-day telegraph boys who arc budding Prime Ministers will wish those alleged glorious days back again. When the following is read there will be adequate excuse for rude mirth:—

"The New Zealander is trained almost from the cradle to be able to defend his country. From five to twelve years of age he receives systematic physical education and training. This is 'continued from twelve to seventeen, plus semi-military training. Then he enters one or other branch of the New Zealand forces, serving until he is twenty-five, when he passes into the reserve. Military service is compulsory for all, and wocbetide the New Zealand employer who dares to dock a man's salary when he is away for his annual training."

There seems to be no comment to fit the case except explosions of merriment. The reference to the meek employer who dare not refuse to pay for work undone is refreshingly rich. Sir Joseph Ward really ought to have seen the "proofs" of the numerous interviews the British Press insisted on haying with him. In the meantime, if it is true that 44 years ago, when Sir Joseph Ward was 14 years old, the indispensible telegraph boy received £I3G a year (theVe being then about one-eight of the pre-sent-day work to do) the little boys in the ugly khaki uniforms have a real grievance. Why don't they get an adult wago toot

LITTLE QUART POTS. The remarkable feature about the hand writing taught at schools is that it never survives, except in cases where the pupil has no initiative, no originality, and merely uses the for the conveyance of somebody else's ideas. When one hears a glowing tribute to Smithkins for being a "beautiful writer," one suspects Smithkins of the careful mathematical "two-and-two-make-four" sort of intellect that makes him useful as a copying clerk. Education boards frequently criticise the handwriting of school children, but before doing so they should invariably regard with interest the caligraphy of Shakespeare, tho Duke of Wellington, Nelson, Sir Joseph Ward, Thackeray, Charles Dickens, Horace Greely, and others who did not become, mere machines for the expression of other folks' notions. We will admit that it is necessary to believe that the larger proportion of boys and girls now at school will be mediocrie persons after they have left it, and will -never be called upon to exercise their own initiative or creative powers. But we won't admit that five per cent, of the scholars of Taranaki will write in tho least little bit as they do at school for five years after they have left it. But as the modern school system is specifically designed to make every little boy and girl pea exactly like every other little boy the girl pea, we suppose it is necessary to insist that every childish "a" in Taranaki shall slope the one way, be precisely like the one carefully drawn by a mechanic or engraver, and every "b" be the counterpart of all the "b's" that ever flowed from pens. In adult life no one person does any single a«t exactly like any other person. If the (Jear, delightful cut-and-dried school method pursued us into business life, ex-: istence would be intolerable. No two ewes ever "ba" the same way, and any experienced dairyman can tell the voice of "Daisy" from "Strawberry." Nature knows her business and insists on absolute distinction in everything she produces. If A.B. in business life wrote exactly like 8.A., and C.D. precisely like D.C., the complications would be painful. If school teachers could discover how each child could most easily express thought in ink, the very stupid method of blaming or punishing a child for not pointing the butt of his pen over his right shoulder when Nature tells him it should —in his case—point to the boy on the right, would disappear. To pour exactly the samo proportion and quality of instruction into all little minds, every one of which is absolutely dissimilar, isn't education —it's mere foolishness, and some day the system will cease. To insist that every child shall write at exactly the same angle is just as foolish as insisting iliat everybody shall thinkexactly the samo way on the same subject. It really is time educationists got over the belief that one child is as like a quartpot as another, and can hold the same carefully measured portion of facts and be made into an automaton which has a struggle in after life to become a thinking, original human being with ideaß of hia own.