EDUCATIONAL NOTES.

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17078, 16 April 1927, Page 13 (Supplement)

EDUCATIONAL NOTES.

SCHOOL TRADITIONS.

(By “Dominie.”)

The important part that the traditions of the great public schools are playing in the life of Great Britain and the Empire was emphasised recently by the Governor of New South Wales (Sir Dudley de Chair) when participating in Speech Day at the Scots College in Sydney (reports the Sydney Morning Herald). “I am indeed happy,” said Sir Dudley, “to have the opportunity of meeting tiie youth of New South Wales whenever possible, either at the school or in the playing field. I have only a few years in which to learn anything of Australia by personal contact, and in which to win the friendship of Australians, and then I must return to England, where, perhaps, I may turn to the advantage of this country the knowledge I have gained here.

“The secondary schools of this State,” continued His Excellency, “had worthily carried on tradil ions upon which the great public schools of England were founded. Tiie common aim of tiie schools was in the making of character. Scholarship and athletics and the growth of the mind and tiie body were important matters which were put under the guidance of their schools, but the most important thing of all —character —the building up of a love of justice, of truth, and thought for others —was also very largely in tiie hands of the schools. “You boys must remember,” said His Excellency, “that it is by this standard of character—your individual characters and actions—that your school will be judged. Never let down your school or in any way sully its good name. Your studies will have made you acquainted with the Greek ideal of manhood. It means the harmonious cultivation of the mind and of the body, and the view that exercise of his public duties as a citizen, implying a direct and active co-operation in all functions of civil and military Life, is a necessary part of a man’s complete self-expression. You know, of course, that the complexity of life to-day makes it impossible for every man directly to express himself in the life of the State, but it will be for the greater glory of Australia if you who will later take up the responsibility for the government of the Commonwealth give thought now to what its citizens can best offer to their country.

“You might think that I refer to courage such as the Anzacs displayed in the Great War, or to intelligence and foresight in the direction of public affairs as shown by men of the stamp of Wentworth and Parkcs, but what is in my mind is simpler than these, and yet includes them. Service is the quality which I would have you foster. Do not grow up to go your own way in life, thinking only of your personal affairs and leaving public interests to the other fellow.”

CHARACTER BUILDING.

AND MODERN DISTRACTIONS

Mr P. F. Calow, acting headmaster of Barker College, Hornsby, New South Wales, in his annual report, delivered at the prize distribution recently, referred to the spiritual development of the school. “I wish to refer,” he said, “to that which for every schoolmaster must constitute the greatest glory, if it is only the hardest part, of his profession—the development of the spiritual tendency. This is a difficult matter for a layman; for the spiritual dies at the first breath of cant. 1 feel that parents could do more to deepen and strengthen the essentials of the boy’s character if they would join hands with us in stimulating the hoy’s spiritual life through reading, and the avoidance of distraction. I am astounded at the frequency with which one has to say ‘no’ to proposals perfectly good and reasonable in themselves, merely in order to give the boys, if I may say so, a little peace. There is a constant stream of invitations to picture shows, to concerts, to exhibitions and performances of every possible kind, to anything and everything that can distract and divert the pupil from his legitimate business of slow development. It js futile and disastrous to seek to engraft upon a boy of 13 all the worldly experience of a grown man. Such things can come later. I am convinced that the essentials of character must be slow in growth if they arc to ho strong. It can do the average boy no good to attend the cheaply sentimental entertainments incessantly thrust before him. There is a store of spiritual strength in mere spaciousness and silence, and beauty, and it is a wrong tiling to cramp a boy’s masculine breadth of vision and imagination with an incessant attention to some paltry mechanism. I believe that it is a fault ol the present generation that we parents will keep our boys at their mechanical toys while we neglect the glorious heritage of our English literature. Mechanism may carry us more comfortably through life in peace or more swiftly to death in war, but no mechanism will ever unlock for us the SSL&.9* ,lishcsl & EDUCATIONISTS OF EMPIRE. ffihe Imperial Education Conference will meet in London, from June. ~0 to July 8, this year. This conference which is held every three years, is attendad by delegates from all parts of the Empire. The delegates are appointed by their respective ucnernments and arc all officially con" nected with the administration of education. Arrangements for the conference are being made by an advisory committee, presided over by Sir Aubrey Symons, Permanent S.rretary of the Board of Education, and consisting of the High Commissioners, AgentsGeneral, and other representatives in London of Dominions and Colonies. The subjects which “have been proposed for discussion at the conference have been- divided into five groups. One group deals with education in relation to the pupil’s after careeer, with special reference to problems of post-primary and vocational education. The second group deals with questions peculiar to tropical or sub-tropical countries, where the population is of more than one race; the third, with rural education; the fourth, with new ideas and developments; and the fifth, with broad problems of administration. Among the new developments which will be discussed arc the use of broadcasting and the cinema in schools. Other subjects in the same section arc those of intelligence tests, sub-normal children, and school architecture. ... . ••—•