EDUCATIONAL NOTES.

Waikato Times, Volume 100, Issue 16815, 5 June 1926, Page 13 (Supplement)

EDUCATIONAL NOTES.

WHERE GIRLS BEAT BOYS. (By "Dommic.”) A gift to Canterbury College was made some time ago by Mrs F. A. Wilding in the shape of a Wilding Memorial lecture which was in memory of her daughter, Miss Gladys Wilding, and her son, Mr Anthony Wilding, both of whom were students at the (Jollegc. The first lecture was given by Professor .1. Adams, ol' London University, when lie visited New Zealand, and Hie second was given recently by Professor J. Macmillan Brown, Chancellor of the New Zealand University. Professor Macmillan Brown’s lecture was on “Women and University Education.” lie said that it was not until the nineteenth century that progress was made in respect lo the position of women. The idea of woman as a challcl was widespread to-day, even in some civilised countries. In Japanfcsc factories, women and 'children were worked lo death. If factory laws were needed in the West, they were needed ten limes more in the East. Coeducation, perhaps, had done more than anything else to raise women’s position. It helped to modify the great differentiation produced by sex. It gave a girl a feeling of independence to know that in the competitive examinations she had beaten the boys. Coeducation, beginning in Hie primary schools, had extended to the universities. The University of New Zealand was the first university in the Britisli Empire to admit women to co-educa-tion with men, and lo degrees. Some American universities still kept women from their borders and their degrees. He agreed lhat woman's proper sphere was the household, but not that the fact implied that university education limited or lowered her power of dealing properly with her household. As it was very important that the first seven years of a person's life should be carefully guided and developed, the greatest power over individual lives was in the mothers’ hands. It would benefit the nation to devote the best education it could command to the maternal profession. Too little attention had been given to live intellectual side of women. They should he trained not only on the emotional side, but also on the intellectual side, in order that they might meet all the emergencies in Hie development of a child.

He said that the recognition of coeducation by Canterbury College started the movement for lhe extension of Hie Parliamentary franchise lo women; Hie first petitions praying for the enfranchisement of women were sent lo Parliament from Canterbury. Although no woman had been elected lo the New Zealand Parliament,, the women’s franchise had immensely influenced this Dominion’s legislation, giving New Zealand tho reputation of being the most progressive country in Hie world in regard to social laws. A vote of thanks was passed to Professor Macmillan Brown, on the motion of Miss Chaplin, seconded by Mrs A. J. Merton, both former students of his. PROTEST AGAINST "NEW FAD.” At the seventh annual conference of the National Association of Schoolmasters opened at Hull. Colonel A. Lambert Ward, M.P., in welcoming Hie delegates on behalf ,of the Parliamentary representatives of Hull, said that, even at the risk of incurring their disapproval, economy in these days was essential in every department. Let them begin by all means with the lighting Services. Not many people would maintain it was possible to do without those fighting Services altogether, and when the utmost economy had been practised in i his direction there were other services which would have Lo bear a share of Hie sacrifice. By all means place those services last, but with the present financial position economy must he practised wherever expenditure was taking place. The future of this country depended on a reduction of expenditure, and, however unpopular and unpleasant we might find it, lie did not see under these circumstances how it was to he avoided. In his presidential address Mr J. A. Rice (Hull) said that if education was to fulfil ils purpose, the co-operation or all types of mind was needed. What was a fair lest of efficiency in education? If our educational system was a failure, was the system itself at fault or were facilities too limited and obstacles too many to give the system fair play? Was the competence of the child lo pass an examination in ap approved list of subjects lo lie the gauge? Was a much fairer test, the test of character and citizenship? Were we not sending out from our schools children equipped, not so much with a definite ration of knowledge, as with Hie interest and capacity to seek out knowledge for themselves? Above all, did wc not leave them imbued with lhe idcais and appreciating the advantages of team spirit, and possessing a clean, wholesome standard as to wlvat life should he? Those were questions which sprang to lhe mind as one read and heard varying commentary on our educational system and its products, and, according lo the standard demanded, cacli and every critic decided Lhe success or failure of Hie system.

There was evidence that the value of education, ils possibilities, ‘its need for increasing facilities, were being viewed in the light of a belter perspective, but there were still with us too many people who, from (be vantage point of education, would deny it to others. Curiously enough, those who decried expenditure on education, who asserted that there were too many “frills,’ who complained that in' consequence nothing was done efficiently, were Urn very people who demanded ol' the child answers to multitudinous questions, and pointed the Unger of scorn because the child was not a walking eneylopaedia, ready recknor, and gazetteer combined. They proffered Hie price of a second-hand Cord and professed amazement and concern when limy did not receive a new ltollsHoyec in exchange. Wise expenditure was esscnlial, and Hie foolish and brutal pruning of the educational free must lie prevented if only because advocates of I lie indiscriminate use of the axe lacked that vision which revealed results beyond lliose of the immediate future. Wilhoul deprecating reasonable experiment, there should he sound evidence pointing lo success before new (Continued at foot of nest column.)

fads spread throughout the educational world after the manner of bobbed hair and Russian bools. The only remedy for the bulk of our social problems was an extension of educational facilities, and the efforts of politicians to attract people back to the land were foredoomed to failure unless accompanied by practical proposals f ol* the improvement of Hie existing means of education in many rural areas. lie urged the adequate stalling of schools, particularly in rural areas. In the main the day of the squire was past, Hie day or the parson was passing, and it was to the schoolmaster of tlie future that people in rural areas would look for guidance.