THE GODDESS EXAMINATION.

Wairarapa Age, 29 July 1925, Page 4

THE GODDESS EXAMINATION.

Sir Harry Reiehel, the chairman of the University Royal Commission, who is expected to address a public meeting in Masterton in a week or two, has been very reserved in expressing his opinions on our education system in advance of the preparation of his report. He has, however, in common with Mr Tate, the other commissioner, paid a well deserved tribute to the industry and the self-sacrificing thrift? of a very largo number of university students in New Zealand. No country in the world, we believe, can show a body of young people more keenly anxious to educate themselves and to earn their own means at the same time. Whether they are all wise to go towards the professions is quite another matter. Sir Harry also, at a function at Dunedin the other night, ventured the opinion that no other country in the world was so terribly enslaved by the examination fetish as New Zealand. Who can deny this?. Examinations arc the end-all and the be-all of our educational life. The primary child and the secondary child and the university student are all alike haunted by the imminence of examinations. No sooner have they passed one than they are preparing for another. It dominates their lives and terrifies them into a common mould, robbing them of any chance of showing individuality or of developng their education, as every man and woman should do, into a hobby in the particular studies which interest them. It would not bo so bad if the examinations achieved the object they are designed to serve; but they do not. Matriculation, for instance, which ought to be a measure of a young person’s fitnesSMor a university career, is merely an evidence of hi,s desire to got out of the secondary sehool with a pass into the university if he wishes. Proficiency also, which ought to sort out a certain number of children for artisans and mechanics, merely admits them en mos.se into the secondary schools. Nor docs the examination sort out the deserving from the undeserving. The professions arc overcrowded to-day because they contain many men and women who have not the requisite culture or ability or character for the professions. At tne same time, we know that there are boys and girls who would adorn any profession, but who are prevented from entering them by lack of funds. What is wanted is a system of elimination which will "plough" early in life those who should not go forward t< the professions, and at the same time will endow with bursaries poor girls and boys of character and ability. If the • University Commission and the, Agricultural Education Commission and the Secondary School Commission amongst them ean show us the way to such a system then the money spent on them will bo well rojaid.