The Timaru Herald THURSDAY, JANUARY 21, 1926. SCHOOL CHILDREN AND THE EXHIBITION.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXIII, 21 January 1926, Page 6

The Timaru Herald THURSDAY, JANUARY 21, 1926. SCHOOL CHILDREN AND THE EXHIBITION.

“That -wonderful bit of geography in that wonderful pool is worth an hour of study of any child’s time,” declared • the Minister of Education in tendering- his congratulations to the British Government Commission on the beauty and educational value of the British Court. The consensus of opinion will emphatically endorse this high appreciation of the “wonderful bit of geography,” and also the Minister’s conclusion that it is worth an hour of any child’s time. Sir James has been convinced ere this that the Erhibition is an education in itself, but the problem confronting the Minister of Education is how to afford the school children an opportunity to spend an hour before that wonderful pool. The Minister also confessed that “the New Zealand secondary industries pavilion is an eye>-opener as to the variety and the quality of the Dominion manufactures.” It is encouraging to note the unbounded enthusiasm of the Minister, which is most commendable, but there are tens of thousands of children throughout New Zealand who are wondering what the Minister intends doing to enable the elder primary school children and • secondary school scholars to spend a profitable hour before that “wonderful bit of geography” in the British court, and share with him an eyeopener in the secondary industries pavilion. The Minister’s recent utterance® indicate that hehas given the question some consideration, and although nothinglias been done, we hope the Minister of Education will not shoulder this responsibility on to others, hut that he will evolve some workable scheme to meet prevailing conditions. In the course of a recent speech the Minister made reference to the practicability of some thousands of school children visiting the Exhibition:

Sir James agreed that every child should have the opportunity or visiting the Exhibition, but some of the Teachers’ Institutes were opposed to bringing the children such, long distances. These facts had given him thought. The transport could not be done free. Each parent, oven with the help of the Education Department, would have to find £5, £7, or £lO. The children of the working people were thus debarred from coming hero, and it might have been said, and with justification, that the Government was subsidising the rich people. When he had asked for a grant of £6OOO ho had placed the position before Cabinet, and it had regretted, under the circumstances, that it could not agree to help. He hoped even yet that the Government might be able to assist in bringing the children from Christchurch in the north and from the Bluff in the south to attend the Exhibition. He wanted to show that it was not the Minister’s fault that every child was not given an opportunity of being present. Some days ago the president of the Exhibition justly expressed the generally held opinion that children could learn more from the Exhibition than they ever could from school books. A few days’ visit to the Exhibition by intelligent children with receptive minds would be a revelation to them. The educational value of the explanation and demonstration of the exhibits by the obliging- guides, philosophers and friends whose services are available in the different courts would be inestimable. The Dunedin newspapers hope that the Minister of Education will, on his return to- Wellington, secure a reconsideration of the question by the Cabinet and impress strongly upon it the _ view, strengthened by his own inspection of the Exhibition, that it would he gravely unfortunate if the chance were to be neglected of providing for the attendance at. the Exhibition of as many school children of a suitable age and with a suitable degree of knowledge as can practically be managed. We hope the Minister has not adopted “go-slow” tactics in view of Iris impending translation to another field of activity. If a comprehensive scheme is to be put into- operation, there is not very much time to lose. Doubtless the Minister will again urge Cabinet to consider the question of substantial subsidies, but we hope that if the Department of Education fails to rise to the occasion, that the conference of the Federation of School Committees Associations of the South Island which meets in Dunedin at an early date will give tliei important question of arranging- for school children to visit the Exhibition, its sympathetic and immediate consideration.