DAY BY DAY.

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17133, 21 June 1927, Page 6

DAY BY DAY.

The new Minister for Education in

The Dangers of Examinations.

Victoria lias promised to consider a request from the women’s section, of the

Country Party lo abolish public school examinations, and adjust results’to the year’s work. Many a child painfully Hogging a slow brain for examination after examination would rejoice if this bugbear of school life were banished. To completely dispense with examinations might be injudicious, but as there can be too much even of a good thing the questiou of reducing the severity of them is well worth considering. 1 The constant strain •of preparation, with the dread of failure may so affect nervous children as to cause failure, in

i which case the result of an examinah£ihia: a true criterion

of proficiency, becomes a delusion. And any such proof would bo dear if obtained at the expense of the rising generation’s health. But how far the ability to cram for examinations and the possession of a temperament best suited for passing them guarantee the educational equipment of a hoy or girl for the subsequent battle of life is a question tha 1 need not he discussed in this immediate connection. If school examinations are overdone they mutt, prove injurious to the children in one way. even though beneficial in another. Anri on llie whole lliere can hardly he a doubt that the evil would outweigh the good.

There is nothing political in what lias become the leading

The Road to Improvement.

factor in all my thinking. For it is no more, and no

less, than the conviction that all our difficulties are in the last resort moral ones, and that tlie sino qua non of all social advance is more good men and women, ,and belter ones. America has a saying that, no machine is “fool proof.” Neither is any social system, still less “knave proof.” writes “Artifcx" in the Manchester Guardian. It is. of course, easy to argue that poverty, ignorance and had environment arc the chief causes of drunkenness, gambling, laziness and vice; just as it is easy lo take the other side and declare that drunkenness, gambling, laziness and vice arc the chief causes of povertv. Rational people will surely admit that all these evil factors work together. But the practical question is lo determine Ihe best way of attacking this complex of evil causes and evil results. Shall we make men and women better by improving tlicir environment, or shall wc strive to make their environment and everything else connected with 'them, bettor by working for belter men and women V Here, too, probably, it is not a bare alternative. Both methods arc necessary. But if I am asked to say which I hold to be Ihe most necessary, the most fruitful, and the most rapid in action, I should have not the slightest hesitation in replying that the production of better men and women is the way.