CO-ORDINATION.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 6688, 13 August 1919, Page 1

CO-ORDINATION.

(Contributed 'by Education Institute.) Among the- many features of our education system that are coming under the searchlight of criticism there is probably nono that will better repay scrutiny than the lack of connection between tho various stages of school life. Beginning at the bottom and working upwards from the free kindergartens conducted by subsidised voluntary efforts in the larger towns, to the university which should crown the edifice of public education, the o'bsorver is at all stages made aware of a lack of that long-sighted policy that should be tho directing motive' of the whole scheme. Tho free kindergartens as yet perform a relatively small and independent function-; tout they are symptomatic of developments that will mature as time goes on. At present they deal with children under five years of age; and from them the children pass into the preparatory department® of the primary school. They experience- in the change, something in the nature of a revolution; for though they are still of kindergarten age, the schools they enter, in miosb cases, are not adapted in the best 'manner for carrying on the work that has been begun. Floor-space, equipment, and) the size of classes combine to render this impossible. Bad as the break is between the kindergarten andl the primary school, that, between) the primary and the postprimary, whether -secondary or technical, is very much worse. This docs not apply with such force in the district high schools of the smaller towns, for in these there is an opportunity for basing tie work of the secondary department on that of the primary department through which the -pupils have passcdi (Bub in the larger towns, where the pupils pass from the sixth standard to the -secondary or technical school, the transition is comparable to that of an emigrant going into a, foreign country. The technical schools are- a new and immature native growth, and -may bo expected in due time to evolve a style and atmosphere suited to the functions they will !be called) on to perform. The -secondary schools, on the other, hand, are: to all' practical intents an exotic importation. They are modelled, for the most -part, on the English public school, so called, -and pay less regard to the funetioa they should ! servo in this young country 'than to the maintenance of the form® and traditions of the class institutions of. the- Old Land. This is a feature that needs radical alteration without loss of time) and for two maim reasons. The first of these is that ini a democratic co-mimunity such as ours class distinctions should be discountenanced rather than fostered. Our secondary schools aTe not, and- are not I intended to be, class schools, and the | forms and traditions that have (been borrowed from the class institutions of Mite Old Land should give place to ' others -more in conformity with the functions our schools have to fulfil among our own people-. The schools are almost wholly supported Iby public funds, and should 1 be. made- to. serve the needs of the whole of the people, not any section of them. The second reason is inherent in. -the nature of-education itself. 'Education is, or ought to be, a progress, a process of growth, proceeding along a path regularly graded from kindergarten to university—not a path where each ia compelled to .take the same steps im the same time, but where each cam find means of doing- the best' he has it in himi to do, and can do it effectively because 1 of the.sure prepara-i tion that has been made for the doing ia the earlier stage's. This is where the lack of a co-orddnaiting directing power is most severely felt. Speaking- generally) the secondary schools ■ take ' no cognisance of rlia work that has been, donie in the .primary schools. They have their'own .cut-andndrdedl progranMney which- has no relation to what has gone before l , and), as far as cam iberi&eienj m forward! viaioja of what is to come after,except ■iWi*espe<H> of- the small proportion of atadWts whoso objective is.

result is that a very largo proportion of those who pass up from the primary schools find their pathway intersected by a chasm -which is too wide for them to jump. Those who cannot take the jump turn aside from the quest and join the ranis of thoso whoso''higher edutafion, lias been neglected. It is a very familiar phrase, this of a "neglected education," and few people stop to consider all it implies, it implies the waste of much One material, both of 'brain and character, that might have 'been turned to account to the great prolit of the community and the individual. It means that capacities for life and work have 'become, atrophied for lack of cultivation, it moans the declining into second or third-rate citizenship of those who anight have -been first-rate. It means that the power of the individual to contribute to tho common good lias been allowed to fade away, or at the least has not been given an opportunity to grow. That is the kind of loss that the nation and its citizens aro suffering because of the ■want of some authority that can give unity and co-ordination to the operations of the different parts of our educational machine.