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Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LVI, Issue 8635, 18 December 1906, Page 4

Sib Joseph Ward desires an artificial language called " Esperanto " to ba taught in the public schools. There are enough fads in these institutions already and we venture to hope that they will be saved from a further infliction of Ihi3 kind. It would be well if a child could receive such teaching as his parents desire him to acquire. It would be still better if he could be taught these subjects for which he himself has some special aptitude. Unfortunately all the children are tarred with the one sylla bus brush. A girl who ought to learn to sew is trained to be an arithmetician and a boy who possesses a talent for mechanism is instructed in some other subject towards which-he has not the slightest bent. To put square pegs in round holes, and vice verm, is the aim of State education. Ought not Sir Joseph Ward to take a course of Esperanto himself before prescribing it for school children? Why should not quack languages be penalised as well as quack medicines.