PUBLIC OPINION

Wanganui Chronicle, 28 January 1948, Page 4

PUBLIC OPINION

EDUCATION IN N.Z. Sir, —Allow me to congratulate you on your leading articles dealing with the condition of education in New Zealand today. It could scarcely be worse. Slovenly spelling, careless writing and general ignorance of arithmetic and grammar, unreliability and lack of application are inevitably the wretched burdens of young people today owing to the policy of the Education Department over the last ten years. I read in a paper some time ago that an Education Board inspector, in defending the standard in arithmetic, had said it was enough if a person could count his change, for the State would look after him from the cradle to the grave. Recently I read extracts from German State papers exposed in the Nuremberg trial of war criminals. One of these ordered that conquered peoples were not to have much education; they were to be kept subservient. It would be quite enough if they could count up to 100. Can it be that the present Government in New Zealand is aiming at reducing New Zealand people -to ignorant subservience?—l am, etc., "N. 8. Wanganui, Jan. 24, 1948.