THE SCHOOL JOURNAL.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 1349, 11 June 1907, Page 3

THE SCHOOL JOURNAL.

CHEAPER THAN FREE BOOKS.

The Minister of Education, Mr Fowlds, was speaking to an Auckland interviewer about the School Journal. He was reminded of the criticisms passed on the ■first issue of the Journal.

"Yes," replied the Minister; "but generally speaking both the press and the teachers throughout the colony have highly commended the style and the matter of the first issue. There were, of course, points open to criticism, and each succeeding number would probably be -an improvement on its predecessor. Some papers had evidently misunderstood the function and the scope of the Journal ; perhaps the name had to some extent misled them. What was aimed at was a really up-to-date school raider, to take the place of all the supplementary reading-bpoks at present in use in the schools, and in that way meeting the growing demand all over the colony for free books." The Minister added that the cost of the Journal would not be more than a-third of the cost that would be involved in supplying free books to fthe children on the old plan, and the interest and value attaching to a monthly publication would be much greater than that of the old, stereotyped school-readers. Mr Fowlds mentioned that requests had been received from private schools to be supplied with copies of the monthly issues, and he was making inquiries, with a view t6' supplying the Journal to such schools at cost price. •With regard to the extracts in the Journal, Mr Fowlds said: — "If we teach our history through the romance of our best authors we shall be able to stimulate the imagination — not deaden it — and the men and the women of the past will appear as living characters, not mere puppets, as they are frequently presented in the history books. Moreover, an interest in history will be aroused, and there will follow a liking for the historical romance of the best class, which will be read after the pupils leave school, and which I hope will tend tb kill the 'shilling shocker,' which is so popular."