CHARACTER BUILDING

Taranaki Daily News, 9 June 1931, Page 11

CHARACTER BUILDING

AIM OF TRUE EDUCATION.

THE EXAMINATION FETISH.

“The primary responsibility. of the schoolmaster is■ character building, and unless the syllabus has a definitely ethical basis, I fail to see how this may be carried out,” said ,Mr. .J. R. butcliffe, principal of Scots College, in an address at Wellington on Saturday on the work of the "college to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. The whole aim of education, said Mr. Sutcliffe, should be the production . of worthy, responsible and God-fearing citizens. There was a tendency to regard education as merely preparation for the passing of examinations. A reaction could be seen in the growth ot the “commercial” type of college in New Zealand. Although he in no way deprecated the efforts of this type of instruction. it could not be applied to a boys college. The system of grading adopted in the New Zealand State schools tended directly to “examination-mongering.” What was the- effect on the minds of the pupils of a belief that education consisted in the learning of a few hundred facts to pass an examination I asked Mr. Sutcliffe. As case in point, he instanced a town in New Zealand vvlieie there were two schools —a church school and a departmental one. The departmental school gained a greater number of .examination successes, consistently over a number of years, mainly due to the efforts of an excellent English master, who made a speciality of getting his charges to memorise certain classical quotations, the identifying olj which was an important part of the | examination paper. Although in the, other school the percentage ot passes was lower, he was quite sure that the pupils there knew more about literature.

than the ones who had been made to learn parrot-fashion. • "Making a fetish of examinations does not constitute true education,” he' said. “The trqe aim should be characterbuilding. . It is to the schools that we must look to overcome poor citizenship. You say we have a responsible citizenship in New Zealand? Then prove it by seeing the number that vote at the municipal and general elections. The high percentage of those who do not cast their vote is a scathing indictment of our citizenship.”. ' ' , • ’ Touching upon tjie work of Scots College, Mr. Sutcliffe said that though it was not yet 16 years old the school had turned out many men who had already made their mark in the professions and on the land. But was the Assembly giving the school all the assistance it required —the assistance it had the right to expect? He did not refer to financial assistance, he left that to the Board of Governors, but to moral support and help in the way of recommending the school to families that had sons of suitable age. Last year, in spite of the financial depression, the school roll liad increased by 20 per cent. He was informed by the Board of Governors that’anotber 20 boarders would make a very substantial difference to . the balance-sheet. Although Scots was the only Presbyterian bovs’ boarding college in the North Island, last year three-fifths of the boarders were Anglicans, though this year the number had fallen to 52 per cent.