Technical Education.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5281, 11 June 1895, Page 1

Technical Education.

At a recent meeting of the Wellington Education Board several resolutions wore passed which, may mean very little or may mean a great deal. It was resolved that, in the opinion of the Board, technical instruction should be more largely given in State schools, and that the Byllabus Bhould be revised and modernised. To carry out these resolutions a conference of all Education Boards was suggested. As regards the first of these proposals, opinions will probably vary much as to how far it is possible or expedient to give technical instruction in primary ' Bohools. It is an open question as to whether such instruction Bhould take the form of workshop practice or be confined to lesson ■ bearing on those subjects which are likely to be ÜBeful to the artisan or the farmer. We are inclined to think that most people who have had any practical experience of workshop life will consider that it would be little else than a waste of time and money to attempt much in the way of making practice in the use of tools apart of our primary school curriculum. We are aware that in Baying this we run the risk of being called " oldfashioned," " unprogresaive," and so forth. We are not ignorant of the fact that the training of the eye and hand is considered by modern "educationists "—if that is the correct word— to be a necessary part of a child's education, even if that training has to be secured by the somewhat profitless exercise of making wooden spoons. But there are those who consider that in our primary schools this training of the eye and hand can be accomplished more successfully by the teaching of drawing than by anj other method.

A workshop-training that would reach only a few boys in each of our large schools would be merely a farce, while a system of work-Bhop training that would reach the majority of the pupils would ba all but impracticable, on account of the expense and loss of time. Primary education mußt of necessity be comparatively inexpensive, and there are critics who consider onr system already much too expensive. While we do not sympathise with these opponents of the system, we do not think it would be wjsato give them another canse of complaint by Bpending public money on "fads." But while we have little faith in the utility of teaching, or attempting to teach, the use of tools to the many thousands of boys attending our primary schools, we believe that every opportunity Bhould be given to lads who have chosen their calling in life ' to perfect themselves in their respective trades by means of .evening technical schools and plasses, and publio money certainly could nob be better spent than in this way. There might also be established "schools of domestic instruction," for the benefit of girls who have left the primary school, but who wish to improve their knowledge of housekeeping, dressmaking and other womanly occupations. Briefly, our contention is that technical schools should be established for purely technical education, but that technical education, pure and simple, iB out of place in the primary sohool. There is no reason, however, why a great deal more should not be done in our day schools than is done at present to cultivate in our youths a taste for the industrial arts. Much-might be achieved, for instance, by giving greater facilities for the teaching of elementary science. This is a subject in which most boys are readily interested, but which at .present, we -fear, receives little attention. This neglect ia probably not to be attributed to indifference on the part of teachers co much as to sheer want of time, owing to the teaching of science being crowded out by the manifold demands of the "syllabus."

Much might be accomplished, however, by mean b of reading-lessons bearing on the principles of eciencd as applied to farming, and to the various handicrafts which flourish in our colonial towns. More time might be given, also, to teaching girlß such subjeota as aewing, domestic economy, the lawß of health and the care of the sick. These subjects are at present included in the all-comprehensive syllabus, bat we fear that owing to want of time they, like the elementaty science lessons, enjoy but a feeble and attenuated existence. Such a practicable extension of "technical" teaching as we have attempted to indicate would, we believe, meet with approval and success. But any attempt to introduce an expensive and useless system of workshop training into the day-school would probably result in failure and in discredit to our primary school system. One of the oddest of the arguments that have been made übb of in favour of snch an attempt is that by it labour wonld be dignified and ennobled. We have little patience with those people who think so unworthily of " hand-workera" that they imagine it neceEsary for the cause of labour to be bolstered up with arguments of this sort. They may reßt assured that labour was both noble and dignified before they were born, and will be noble and dignified after they are dead. If in the past those who labour with their hands have, through inferior education among other causes, been underestimated by others, that is all the more reason why lads who are to earn their living by a handicraft should receive as thorough a scholastic training as time will pertnit before entering on their apprenticeship.